Experimental Pharmacopsychology and Psychological Addiction Research (Prof. Dr. B. Quednow)

Pharmacopsychology – today a subdiscipline of Neuropsychology and Biological Psychology – was founded by the famous German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), who admitted to having “psychological tendencies”. This research field aims to explore the neurochemical basis of cognition, emotion, and behaviour by utilising pharmacological challenges. Standing in Kraepelin’s tradition, our main research goal is an enhanced understanding of the neuropsychopharmacological principles of social and non-social cognition, social interaction, decision-making, impulsivity, and reward processing. We investigate not only acute but also chronic drug effects, such as can be found, for example, in substance use disorders.