Dr. Manuel Brenner, head of Brenner Lab – Ernst Struengmann Institute for Neuroscience ESI Frankfurt

„Thinking, feeling and behavior are not static, but arise, like some mental illnesses, from continously changing processes in the brain. Our goal is to develop machine learning methods that accurately capture these dynamics from complex multimodal data and pave the way to clinical insights.“

Dr. Manuel Brenner, Group Leader
manuel.brenner[at]esi-frankfurt.de
+49 69 96769 0

Research Topics at Brenner Lab at ESI

Thinking, feeling, and behavior are not static but arise from continuously changing processes in the brain. Mental disorders also unfold dynamically: symptoms may intensify, diminish, or occur in waves. This temporal dimension is crucial for understanding brain function in both health and disease.

As part of the LOEWE Center DYNAMIC, the resarchers at the Brenner Lab investigate how such dynamics can be captured and described in mathematical models. They develop self-learning algorithms that can extract hidden states and patterns in brain activity and behavior directly from complex data. At the same time, the Brenner Lab emphasizes interpretability: the models should not only be powerful but also remain understandable. In this way, the researchers aim to bridge modern AI, basic neuroscience, and clinical questions in psychiatry. The overarching goal is to develop methods that open the path from modeling to practical application in clinical settings.