Mind, Brain Imaging and Neuroethics

Research Unit Director: Dr. Georg Northoff

 

We are driven by the questions: What is our brain? How does it work? What is the self?

Especially, we are interested in how our brains constitute subjective experience of our selves and our environment.

Using imaging techniques on healthy and psychiatric subjects, we search for brain mechanisms which underlie our emotions and our sense of self.

At the same time, we aim to investigate the design of our brain-based knowledge apparatus and it its tendency to assume a mind as reflected in the apparently perennial mind-brain/body discussion.

Our research thus cuts across the traditional disciplines of philosophy, neuroscience and psychiatry. We are sure that such a transdisciplinary approach will open the door to a fascinating world of exciting findings that will shed new light on our very human self and our very human brain.

We carry our projects and investigations out in various locations. The main places are Ottawa (University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research) and Montreal (McGill University, Montreal Neurological Institute), which are complemented by various collboarations in different countries in Europe (such as Newcastle, Göttingen, Magdeburg, Münster and Zürich) and Asia (such as Beijing, Hongkong and Shanghai).

 

 

 

updated: 03/08/2010