Description

Research and teaching at the University Hospitals of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, and Old age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy is organized across all three clinics and includes cutting edge neuroscientific methods. All three psychiatry clinics have a strong track record in applying multimodal brain imaging to study the mechanism of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as dementia, schizophrenia, depression, and substance use disorders. In parallel to the clinician scientists, the Research Department provides infrastructures and methodological support. The common aim is to improve patients’ lives by applying neuroscientific methods to precision psychiatry. For example, researchers work on refining individual prediction by integrating brain imaging and clinical data. Another line of research is devoted to understanding the neural basis of psychopathology. Finally, neuroimaging is applied to plan and evaluate novel treatments, such as brain stimulation, virtual reality guided training, neurofeedback, or the combination of brain stimulation and psychotherapy.
The research groups working with MR based brain imaging techniques are using multiple methods, such as structural grey and white matter imaging, perfusion MRI, resting-state functional MRI and task fMRI. In addition, we combine of methods such as EEG and fMRI, non-invasive brain stimulation (tACS, tDCS, rTMS), virtual reality experiments, and machine learning approaches. Research groups in psychiatry enjoy active national and international collaboration. Our work is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, private foundations, and intramural grants. Finally, all three University Hospitals of Psychiatry provide undergraduate and postgraduate training in clinical neuroscience and psychiatry

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