Mission of the Institute

The Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry combines in a unique fashion basic and clinical research and clinical services in psychiatry and neurology. Depression and anxiety disorders are the main topics of research and clinical care.

Depression attaches great importance to public health. In Germany alone, app. 4 Mill. people suffer from depression. Every tenth german citizen falls ill once or several times within his life. In addition, depression double to some extent the risc for cadio-vascular and age-depended diseases, like Morbus Parkinson or Alzheimer´s disease.

Therefore, the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry aimes to identify the basis of depression to set the ground in developing new diagnostic and therapeutic options. The interdisciplinary and patient-oriented organisation of all scientific and medical staff members in research groups, promote the direct exchange and communication of preclinical and clinical researchers. Clinical obserations, which appear during diagnosis and therapie, will have direct impact on new questions and research concepts. They will processed firsthand to preclinical laboratories to investigate the causal mechanism. Contrary, findings of basis researchers will be immediately enter into conception of new clinical trials.