Emotional Neuroscience

The research group "Emotional Neuroscience" has a focus on neurobiological correlates of emotional, motivational and cognitive processes in psychiatric disorders, like in alcohol dependence, behavioural addictions, affective disorders and schizophrenia. Especially emotion and reward processing as well as reward-associated learning and memory are core interests of our research. We combine different methodically strategies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, MR spectroscopy and brain volumetry to assess the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders and its relation to psychopathology and neuropsychological functions. Moreover, we seek after neurobiological endophenotypes in patient populations by combining neuroimaging with genetic analyses. Heading for a retranslation of neuroscientific research into clinical practise we are also interested in the neurobiological mechanisms of therapeutic change.