German Centre for Mental Health

The Center for Intervention and Research on adaptive and maladaptive brain Circuits underlying mental health (C-I-R-C) is a joint endeavor of researchers in the Mid-German cities Jena, Halle and Magdeburg as part of the newly established German Center for Mental Health. They use translational research of common psychiatric disorders and public mental health for the benefit of patients across their entire lifespan. The C-I-R-C will be funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to establish a research, prevention and intervention center. It aims to provide a transdisciplinary platform of application-oriented neuroscience to investigate specific neural and immune access points that shape adaptive and maladaptive brain circuits underlying behavior in mental disorders in patients of all age groups. The interdisciplinary research team will investigate brain circuit adaptations and thus address social as well as brain-body interactions. The participating scientists from the Leibniz-HKI investigate in particular the influence of the microbiome on mental health.