Scientific work at the Institute of Medicine (IME) concentrates on the analysis of the neuronal mechanisms in healthy and diseased human brain underlying the motoric, sensory and cognitive activities and their dysfunctions. Investigations from single-cell up to systems level are aimed at new findings in the field of basic neuroscientific research (emphasis on cognitive neuroscience) and the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases, above all epilepsy, motor disturbances, hepatic encephalopathy and psychiatric disorders. For this purpose, imaging and electrophysiological techniques of positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission computer tomography (SPECT), magneto-encephalography (MEG) and structural as well as functional magnetic resonance tomography (MRT, fMRI) are used and methodologically advanced.

For tracer studies in humans, non-human primates, rodents and cell cultures, in addition to established radioligands, radioligands so far not available are also evaluated for the detection of glutamatergic, GABAergic, serotoninergic, dopaminergic and cholinergic neural transmission and of metabolic activities in close cooperation with the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry (INC) of Research Centre Jülich. The experimental approach is rounded off by the identification of neuronal fundamentals of synchronization, oscillation and binding phenomena in MEG and EEG.

These activities are complemented by a methodological priority task in which new techniques of functional imaging and the integrated representation of multimodal functional, structural and biochemical image data are developed in cooperation with the Central Electronics Laboratory (ZEL) and the Central Institute for Applied Mathematics (ZAM).