How the study of the human brain helps us understand mental illnesses

Date: August 27, 2004
Time: 8:00-9:00
Room: Folkets Hus, room number 307

One of the greatest challenges in science is the attempt to understand the functioning of the human brain, to find answers to the question how neuronal interactions can give rise to mental phenomena such as perceiving, feeling, deciding, remembering, action planning, and finally being aware of these functions. During the last decades, sophisticated tools have become available for the measurement of brain activity in human subjects and to establish correlations between brain processes and mental functions. In combination with the steadily growing insight into neuronal mechanisms of information processing that are obtained in complementary investigations in animals even high level mental functions are now amenable to neurobiological analysis. This has far reaching consequences for the understanding of mental illness, for the design of neuronal prosthesis, and for the development of new information technologies. Professor Singer reports.

Professor Singer, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main.

The plenary session is held on 27 August at 09:30-12:30, Folkets Hus, Congress Hall C.