The institute in the change of time

The roots of the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology extend back to the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin, who founded in Munich the world’s first privately financed, university-independent and interdisciplinary brain research institute: the German Institute for Psychiatric Research (DFA). This was soon to attract scientists such as Brodmann, Nissl, Page, Pasternak, Plaut and Spielmeyer.

As one of the first institutes outside Berlin, the German Institute for Psychiatric Research was integrated into the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in 1924. In 1926, the Rockefeller Foundation awarded the sum $325,000 for the outstanding work performed by the institute. This financed a new building, officially opened in 1928 and located in the Kraeplinstrasse in Munich.

In 1954, the institute, now affiliated with the Max Planck Society, was renamed the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry (DFA), and restructured into the Clinical and an Experimental Department. This reorganization mirrored the differences in focus of the two research departments and justified the acknowledgement of the Experimental Department as an independent institute – the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology – in 1998. The Clinical Department continues to exist under the name of the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry (www.mpipsykl.mpg.de/en).

The institute moved to Martinsried in 1984, where it is situated right next to the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry (www.biochem.mpg.de/en). During the past decades, the two institutes stood – and still stand today - for first-class basic research in the Life Sciences. This fact encouraged further institutes, such as the Biocenter and the Biomedical Center of the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) or the Innovation and Startup Center for Biotechnology (IZB) to establish themselves in Martinsried. The result are unique cooperation and interactions at the still growing at the Life Science Campus Martinsried (www.campusmartinsried.de/eng).