Research at ESI pursues the overarching goal of gaining deeper insights into the organization and functioning of the human brain and, in cooperation with researchers working in clinical settings, such as Goethe University in Frankfurt, using this knowledge to improve the diagnosis and treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Such collaborations exist here, for example, with the Clinic for Psychiatry and the Epilepsy Center of the Clinic for Neurology.
So our research also helps to understand what causes neurological and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, autism, and epilepsy. In the long term, the knowledge gained from basic research could help develop therapies for brain diseases.
At the start of a research project, it is always necessary to answer the question of which method is suitable. Scientists at the Ernst Strüngmann Institute have a wide range of methods at their disposal. These include, for example, computer simulations, non-invasive imaging techniques such as EEG, MEG, and MRI in humans, organoids, and animal research. ESI also has a very high-performance computing center, which researchers use to analyze the complex data sets and generate computer models. As a general policy, animal experiments are only used when other methods are not suitable.
There are fundamental questions that cannot yet be answered by other methods, such as explaining how signal transmission works in the brain at the cellular level. In addition to explaining basic brain functions, these findings also contribute to understanding which disorders impair healthy brain function or can lead to disease.
Whenever animal research is used, ethical questions arise that are not easy to answer. ESI aims to provide proactive and transparent information about scientific issues, methods, successes, and limitations of animal research. Therefore, we have set up a transparency platform, which you can find here.
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