DEAR READER,
Welcome to the website of the Institute for Network Stimulation – which is based at the University Hospital Cologne.
We are a scientific group with interest in neuroimaging, methods development, movement disorders and invasive brain stimulation.
The goal of our research is to analyse and modulate brain networks to improve clinical treatment in neurological and psychiatric brain disorders.
The primary tools we use to pursue these goals are structural imaging and noninvasive connectivity measures derived from functional and diffusion weighted MRI.
Scientific focus
As a methodological “backbone” of our work, together with others, we develop an open-source software called Lead-DBS.
Lead-DBS is a toolbox facilitating Deep Brain Stimulation electrode reconstructions and computer simulations based on postoperative MRI & CT imaging.
Further scientific contributions include estimating and validating normative brain connectomes – i.e. “average wiring diagrams” of the human brain. These atlases describe which area is how strongly connected to which other areas of the brain. Over the years, we have created several – they are all freely available to the scientific community and were applied in a context where subject- or patient-specific connectograms are not available.
Publications
Members of our lab published in peer-reviewed international journals such as Nature Neuroscience, Nature Communications, Annals of Neurology, Brain, PNAS, Biological Psychiatry, NeuroImage and Human Brain Mapping.
Stimulating Brains: A Podcast and Talk Series about Brain Stimulation and the stimulating Brains of our Field
Our lab hosts a Podcast and Talk Series about Brain Stimulation.
In it, we interview stimulating researchers about the past, present and future of Neuromodulation, as well as feature talks by senior colleagues and rising stars in the field.
Funding
The Netstim Institute is currently funded by the Schilling Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
Past funding includes grants from the German Research Council, the Dystonia Research Foundation, the Berlin Institute of Health, Stiftung Charite, the Thiemann Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease Research, the Foundation for OCD research (FFOR), the German Research Council and the EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND).
