Using fMRI our group investigates patients with schizophrenia, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder as well as healthy people. Applying univariate and multivariate (e.g. PLS, canonical correlation) as well as connectivity (e.g. PPI, SEM, DCM) analyses we aim at finding out more about the neural substrates underlying different cognitive processes like deterministic and probabilistic learning, cognitive control, working memory or decision making under uncertainty and their alterations in the context of mental disorders.

One focus of our research constitutes the characterization of changes in activation and their precise temporal dynamics during successful and unsuccessful learning. We are especially interested in identifying influencing factors like individual or disorder-related performance differences or the role of psychopathological symptoms.

By combining functional data with structural parameters like gray matter density or white matter diffusion we moreover aim at disclosing potential structure-function relationships predominantly with regard to pathological alterations associated with major depression or schizophrenia. Relating these alterations to clinical aspects (e.g. suicidal behavior) our group aims to identify relevant physiological correlates that might serve as predictors with regard to changes in psychopathological symptoms or behavior.