Unlocking the Brain’s Capabilities

What makes us people with distinctive characteristics? This involves our brains facilitating a number of complex functions, such perception, memory, communication or action. The scientists at Tübingen’s Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN) unlock the secrets of how our brains make these functions possible. The CIN, a network of researchers at the University of Tübingen, and several external institutes are striving to understand the brain’s capabilities using a range of methods, from analysis of genetic bases to the investigation of information processing in the brain using computer models. With their results, scientists at the CIN are helping to improve the diagnosis and treatment of impairments to movement, memory and perception, and are showing the way for ‘brain inspired’ innovations in technology. Working closely with philosophers, they are discussing the implications of neuroscientific research for our view of humans and their place within nature. The CIN is promoting research-oriented training, with among other things an interdisciplinary graduate school, in which doctoral students from philosophy and the neurosciences work together on joint projects.