Hans-Joachim Freund (neurologist)

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Hans-Joachim Freund (born August 17, 1935 in Neukirchen , Krs. Moers) is a German neurologist and university professor. Until 2001 he was director of the neurological clinic at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf .

Life

After studying medicine, he worked as an assistant doctor at the Neurological Clinic of the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg with Richard Jung . This was followed by research stays at the National Hospital Queen Square in London and at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda , USA. From 1977 until his retirement in 2001 he was Professor of Neurology and Director at the Neurological Clinic at Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf.

At the beginning of the seventies, he and his colleagues Hans Joachim Büdingen and Gerhard-Michael von Reutern introduced Doppler sonography of the brain-supplying vessels in Germany and laid the foundations for transcranial duplex sonography with the electronic sector scan.

In the late 1970s, Freund's team used one of the first computer tomographs in Germany to examine the brains of patients with motor disorders for damage in certain areas. He continued his investigations with more modern imaging methods such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance tomography (fMRI). His work on motor learning and the basics of functional recovery after brain lesions were trend-setting.

1982–2001 he was the spokesman for two special research areas . From 1990 to 1993 he was Vice President of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and Chairman of the Senate Commission for Clinical Research of the DFG. In 1994 he received the Hans Berger Prize from the German Society for Clinical Neurophysiology . In 1995 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class.

Since the mid-1990s, Freund worked together with the Cologne neurosurgeon Volker Sturm on what is known as “deep brain stimulation” for the treatment of Parkinson's disease . As a “brain pacemaker”, an implanted electrode blocks uncontrollable tremors and other movement disorders in the patient with high-frequency electrical stimuli.

In 2000, Hans-Joachim Freund, together with Thomas Brandt and Johannes Dichgans, received the Robert Pfleger Research Prize for their fundamental contributions to experimental and clinical neurology and in 2001 the hereditary commemorative coin of the German Neurological Society. 2004 awarded him the University of Zurich the honorary doctorate . In 2016 he was elected an honorary member of the German Society for Clinical Neurophysiology and Functional Imaging

Freund is a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences , the Leopoldina and the German Academy of Science and Engineering Acatech , the Academie Royal de Medicine de Belgique; he is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), London.

Since 2003 he has been a councilor at Forschungszentrum Jülich (Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine, INM-7) and at the International Neuroscience Institute Hannover .

Freund and his wife Elsche have three grown-up children and lives near Düsseldorf.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Pfleger Prize for Freund, Brandt, Dichgans Press release of the Working Group of Scientific Medical Societies, June 30, 2000
  2. ↑ Communication from the University of Zurich: Dies Academicus 2004 Honorary Doctorate (PDF; 63 kB) April 24, 2004
  3. ^ Member entry by Hans-Joachim Freund at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on July 6, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Friend, Hans-Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician and professor emeritus for neurology
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Neukirchen , Krs. Moers