Our Vision

Goals & Mission

Saale and Elbe, the main rivers of Central Germany, connect our three partners: Jena, Magdeburg, and Halle. As the two rivers converge on their path to the sea, so too will our three partners come together and use our interdisciplinary expertise for the benefit of our patients.

We use world-class translational research of common psychiatric disorders and public mental health for the benefit of patients across the lifespan. At its core, excellent molecular, neurophysiological, brain systems, clinical, and health service research will provide the base for significant improvement of prevention, diagnostics, and personalized therapy strategies.

Where we are:

A Flourishing Scientific Landscape

Here in Central Germany a rich and still growing scientific landscape has developed. Our partner sites represent flourishing cities dedicated to science with high-class academic research institutions and extensive research infrastructure in the field of biomedicine.

A particular strategic focus on neuroscience, inflammation, developmental and ageing research was jointly developed to address the most burning questions in health research and medical applications for our people. In the three university towns of Jena, Magdeburg and Halle, numerous non-university research institutes have been founded and established research partnerships with our universities. A steadily growing community of start-up businesses is driving translation of research into medical and industrial applications.

Where we go:

Leading a Top-Level Mental Health Research and Care Hub

Vision

The vision of our initiative is to improve mental health outcomes and to optimize treatment and prevention strategies. We aim to achieve this by making research-based high-quality diagnosis and care available and accessible for the community.

Mission

At C-I-R-C we want to advance mental health research and treatment strategies for patients of all ages by approaching mental states from a circuit perspective. Bringing researchers together from different fields, and by exploiting high-end imaging technology will enable us to follow our mission. Building on insights gained from this research we are able to predict risk and resilience factors as well as define specific mental health care options for individual patients.

Goals

We will establish a research, prevention and intervention centre that will provide a transdisciplinary platform of translational neuroscience to investigate specific neural and immune access points that shape adaptive and maladaptive brain circuits underlying behaviour in mental disorders in patients of all age groups.

Investigating circuit adaptations will address social as well as brain-body interactions, including the microbiome. We aim to raise community awareness of mental health and psychiatric disorders, to create outstanding educational programs for young scientists and clinicians, to advance citizen science approaches, and to collaborate with other professional and advocacy groups to develop best practices for patient-oriented care.