Katrin Amunts is a German

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

. She is the Professor of the C. and O. Vogt Institute for Brain Research at the

University of Düsseldorf A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

and is also Director of the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in INM-1 in

Forschungszentrum Jülich Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ here for short) is a national research institution that pursues interdisciplinary research in the fields of energy, information, and bioeconomy. It operates research infrastructures with a focus on supercomputers. C ...

. She is one of the most prominent neuroscientists in brain mapping in the world. She is Scientific Research Director of the

Human Brain Project The Human Brain Project (HBP) is a large ten-year scientific research project, based on exascale supercomputers, that aims to build a collaborative ICT-based scientific research infrastructure to allow researchers across Europe to advance knowl ...

Career

Katrin Amunts was born in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

in 1962. She studied medicine and biophysics at Pirogov Medical School in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. She earned a doctorate in neuroscience and anatomy at the Institute of Brain Research in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

in 1989. She later trained at a

Fraunhofer Institute The Fraunhofer Society (german: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., lit=Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research) is a German research organization with 76institutes spread throughout Germany ...

in Berlin and joined the C. & O. Vogt Institute for Brain Research at the University of Düsseldorf. She was a professor in Aachen University before rejoining the University of Düsseldorf in 2013. Amunts is amongst the most important researchers in neuroscience today. In the recently published list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2014, the science magazine entitled JARA-BRAIN named her as a key player. Amunts works alongside a team of accomplished scientists, including a colleague named Professor Karl Zilles. Long term, Amunts’ goal in working with the human brain is to create a three-dimensional atlas mapped to the structures in the brain so as to allow its complicated configuration and functions to be imaged and understood microscopically. This would allow us to improve our understanding of the human's control center and advance our abilities to combat diseases or disorders such as depression, addiction, dementia, and Parkinson's disease. This construction is being called the “Big Brain.”

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amunts, Katrin German neuroscientists German women neuroscientists 1962 births Living people German women academics German women scientists People from Potsdam Academic staff of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf 20th-century German scientists 21st-century German scientists 20th-century women scientists 21st-century women scientists Neuroimaging researchers 20th-century German women 21st-century German women