Our research program is embedded in the
Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, devoted to advancing knowledge of the functioning of the nervous system. The program focuses on a limited number of diseases: schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorders in psychiatry; autism and disruptive disorders in childhood psychiatry; and cerebrovascular disorders and neuromuscular diseases in neurology.
A central concept of research is that aberrant brain development can contribute to the symptomatology of a number of brain diseases. Our aim is to create insight into the genetic control of normal brain development in animals and of the plasticity of brain processes after disturbances of homeostasis. To this end, we study relationships between genotype and phenotype in neurological and psychiatric disorders and in relevant animal models. Advanced genetic and brain imaging techniques play an important role. In schizophrenia, for example, structural imaging efforts have proven successful, especially fiber tracking techniques which visualize connections between different parts of the brain.