Institute

Research in our Institute falls in the area of Translational Cognitive Neuroscience and focuses on studying the dynamics of brain activity in health and disease and along the life span.

Our interdisciplinary team uses state-of-the-art techniques from translational cognitive neuroimaging such as MEG, EEG, TES, TMS, MRI.

The Institute currently hosts five research groups led by Prof. Joachim Groß, Prof. Markus Junghöfer, Prof. Carsten Wolters, Dr. Omid Abbasi und Dr. Daniel Kluger.

Magneto-Encephalography (MEG)

The facility operates a whole head neuro-magnetometersystem comprising 275 axial gradiometer sensors in a head shape helmet. Each sensor is a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), an extremely sensitive type of magnetometer which enables us to measure the magnetic field generated by the human brain with a very high temporal resolution (< 1 ms).
The MEG system is placed in magnetically shielded room.
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Electroencephalography (EEG)

Beside of registration of the magnetic field (Magneto-encephalography, MEG) generated by the human brain the acquisition of the electric potentials at the head surface (Electro-encephalograpy, EEG) is of main interest in most of the neuro-physilogical studies applied at our institute.The facility therefore drives three units for EEG recordings on humans.
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Transcranial Electric Brain Stimulation (TES)

The transcranial electric stimulation (TES) as a form of neurostimulation uses low direct (tDCS) or alternating (tACS) current delivered by electrodes on the head surface (scalp).
Beside of therapeutic purposes (e.g. in psychiatric conditions) TES is used in many scientific applications.
At the IBB we investigate changes in the functionality of the human brain when influencing (excitation or inhibition) specific brain regions by means of transcranial electric (TES) and magnetic stimulation (TMS).
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Transcranial Magnetic Brain Stimulation (TMS)

In addition to transcranial Electric Stimulation (tES) we use transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to (temporarily) manipulate the functionality of the human brain.
Thereby a changing magnetic field inducts a electric current having a minimal local distribution in targeted brain regions.
Thereby a coil functioning as magnetic field generator is placed near the subject's head.
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Helum Liquefier Unit

Since November 2013 the IBB operates a stand-alone liquefier unit in order to recapture and liquefy the helium boil off gas continuously evaporating from the Neuromagnetometer system.
The obtained liquid helium is collected in a storage dewar included in the unit and is transferred back to the MEG system. Doing so approximately 70 % of the demand on liquid helium is covered by this process.
Apart from the financial profit the decision to install such a unit on our place was mainly driven by oecological reasons.
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