Max Planck Institute for Brain Research

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Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
The new MPI building on the Riedberg campus in Frankfurt (June 2018)
Category: research Institute
Carrier: Max Planck Society
Legal form of the carrier: Registered association
Seat of the wearer: Munich
Facility location: Frankfurt am Main
Type of research: Basic research
Subjects: Natural sciences
Areas of expertise: Human medicine , brain research
Basic funding: Federal government (50%), states (50%)
Management: Erin Schuman (Managing Director)

Gilles Laurent (Director) Moritz Helmstaedter (Director)

Employee: approx. 210 (as of November 2014)
Homepage: www.brain.mpg.de

The Max Planck Institute for Brain Research is a non-university research facility sponsored by the Max Planck Society (MPG) and is based in Frankfurt am Main . The institute primarily conducts basic research in the field of brain research .

history

The institute was founded in 1914 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research in Berlin-Tiergarten . It is the continuation of the neurological central station founded in 1898 by Cécile Vogt and Oskar Vogt . In 1931 they moved into the institute building in Berlin-Buch , built by Carl Sattler between 1928 and 1929 .

In the 1930s, an additional brain research institute was founded in Moscow, where Lenin's brain was researched. It was sliced ​​there between 1925 and 1927. Oskar and Cécile Vogt examined some of the colored cuts and came to the conclusion that Lenin was an association athlete.

The former Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research, Berlin-Buch (2010)

In 1937 the Nazis forced the Vogts to resign as directors. Together with Julius Hallervorden , Hugo Spatz , Oskar Vogt's successor, used the National Socialist "euthanasia" program between 1940 and 1945 to examine the brains of murdered insane patients. Around 700 brains of euthanasia victims found their way into the institute's collections via Julius Hallervorden and Hugo Spatz.

Research by the journalist Götz Aly in the 1980s proved the origin of the "Hallervorden Collection". As it was not clear which preparations came from "euthanasia" victims and which from patients who had died of natural causes, it was decided to bury all brain slices made during the Nazi period (1933–1945). The preparations, some of which were owned by the University of Frankfurt, were buried in the forest cemetery in Munich in 1990 . A memorial stone in the forest cemetery commemorates the victims.

Memorial stone for the "euthanasia" victims at the forest cemetery in Munich

After the institute was relocated from Berlin-Buch in 1944/45 due to the war, the departments were initially relocated to Bad Ischl , Dillenburg , Göttingen , Marburg , Gießen , Langendreer ( Bochum ) and Schleswig and taken over by the Max Planck Society in 1948.

The institute in Frankfurt-Niederrad started again in 1962. Two new departments with the directors Rolf Hassler (neurobiology) and Wilhelm Krücke (neuropathology) as well as two research groups with Heinz Stephan and Gottfried Werner were founded.

After the retirement of the first generation of Frankfurt directors, Wolf Singer (neurophysiology) and Heinz Wässle (neuroanatomy) were appointed around 1980 . The third department was set up in 1991 with Heinrich Betz (neurochemistry) as director. All three directors are retired. Wolf Singer continues to work as a Senior Research Fellow at the Ernst Strüngmann Institute , which has established itself in the old building of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research (Niederrad).

In 2008 Erin Schuman (Synaptic Plasticity) and Gilles Laurent (Neural Systems and Coding) were appointed new directors at the institute. In April 2013 the institute moved into the new building on the Riedberg campus. Four Max Planck research group leaders have also been appointed there: Tatjana Tchumatchenko , Johannes Letzkus , Hiroshi Ito and Julijana Gjorgjieva. The institute has had a teaching lab since the end of 2013. At the beginning of 2014, further service groups in the areas of imaging, proteomics and scientific computing were established and in August 2014 Moritz Helmstaedter (Connectomics) was appointed as the third director.

research

The institute focuses on the function of circuits in the brain. It currently comprises three scientific departments (Moritz Helmstaedter, Gilles Laurent and Erin Schuman), an emeritus group ( Wolf Singer ), four Max Planck research groups (Johannes Letzkus, Tatjana Tchumatchenko, Hiroshi Ito and Julijana Gjorgjieva) and several smaller research units. The new institute building was completed in 2013. The common goal of research at the institute is a mechanistic understanding of nerve cells and synapses: the structural and functional circuits that they form, the “rules of calculation” they work according to, and ultimately their role in perception and behavior. The experimental approaches cover all levels that are required for this understanding - from local molecular networks in individual nerve cell dendrites to networks of interacting brain areas. This includes interdisciplinary analyzes at the molecular, cellular, multicellular, network and behavioral level, which are often combined with theoretical approaches.

A selection of former directors

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research:

Max Planck Institute for Brain Research:

Workforce expansion

At the end of 2014 there were 211 members of the institute (51% scientific staff), 50% women, 50% men. 20% (45% of the academic staff) do not have German citizenship. There are currently (as of November 2014) 25 nationalities.

International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS)

The Graduate College International Max Planck Research School for Neural Circuits has existed at the MPI for Brain Research since 2011, and is intended to accept up to ten doctoral students each year. The IMPRS is organized in cooperation with several neuroscientific institutes in Frankfurt, such as the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics , the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt , the Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies .

literature

  • Helga Satzinger: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research: Berlin - Frankfurt , in: Places of thought: Max Planck Society and Kaiser Wilhelm Society: Breaks and Continuities 1911-2011 (Eds. Peter Gruss and Reinhard Rürup with the assistance of Susanne Kiewitz ), Sandstein-Verlag, Dresden 2011, ISBN 978-3-942422-01-7 .
  • Gilles Laurent, Erin Schuman, Heinz Wässle , Wolf Singer , Leo Peichl: 100 years minds in motion, Frankfurt 2014, ISBN 978-3-00-045977-1 .
  • Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Institute for Brain Research (Max Planck Institute for Brain Research) (BMS) , in: Eckart Henning , Marion Kazemi : Handbook on the history of the institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm / Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science 1911–2011 - Daten und Quellen , Berlin 2016, 2 volumes, volume 1: Institutes and research centers A – L ( online, PDF, 75 MB ) Pages 639–667 (chronology of the institute)

Web links

Commons : Max Planck Institute for Brain Research  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/KWG/Erresult/Erresult1.pdf Hans-Walter Schmuhl : Hirnforschung und Krankenmord. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research between 1937 and 1945. Schmuhl gives the number of 707 brains that - according to the work of Jürgen Peiffer - come from euthanasia victims.
  2. ^ Max Planck Spiegel 3/1990 (Journal of the Max Planck Society)
  3. ↑ see homepage of the IMPRS at http://www.imprs.brain.mpg.de
  4. ↑ see Faculty and Cooperations of the IMPRS at http://brain.mpg.de/graduate-studies/faculty.html

Coordinates: 50 ° 10 ′ 27.3 ″  N , 8 ° 37 ′ 47.6 ″  E