Worldwide, millions of people are affected by complex psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or treatment-resistant depression. These conditions severely impair quality of life, social participation, and daily functioning, and often respond poorly to existing therapies.
A new interdisciplinary center is now being established in Berlin to bring together research, clinical studies, and innovative approaches for people affected by these illnesses. As an Einstein Visiting Fellow, Brendon Stubbs, Senior Researcher at King’s College London, is launching a four-year project at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, together with Professor Kerem Böge and Einstein Professor Malek Bajbouj. The project combines physical exercise and mind–body therapies with promising substances such as creatine and oxytocin to specifically improve symptoms, physical fitness, and social engagement. Patients will actively help shape the intervention, which will subsequently be tested in a large clinical trial. The goal is to develop integrative, scalable treatment approaches for complex psychiatric disorders.