Keynote Lectures

Brenda Penninx is Professor ‘psychiatric epidemiology’ at the Department of Psychiatry of the Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. Her focus is on cross-disciplinary mental health research which integrates psychiatry, psychology, neuroimaging, genomics, psychoneuroendocrinology, sociology and behavioural medicine. She founded the multi-site, longitudinal Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety, an invaluable research resource for psychiatry which data have been used in >100 PhD-theses and >800 publications. Her work is exemplary in transforming and enhancing the value of longitudinal cohort studies to better understand the multi-nature origin and longitudinal trajectories of stress-related disorders. Themes of Penninx’s research program encompass: 1) examination of the role of psychosocial, neurobiological and genetic factors in etiology and course of depression and anxiety disorders; 2) examination of disorder heterogeneity and treatment response variability to advance development and testing of new treatments.  In 2016, Brenda Penninx was elected member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and Arts, of which she serves as vice-president since 2022.
More on Brenda Penninx

Karl-Heinz Ladwig, Professor for Psychosomatic Medicine and Medical Psychology, is senior research professor at the Medical Faculty of the Technische Universität Muenchen (TUM). His key research interests focus on epidemiological and clinical psychosocial stress-research (Psychocardiology) and metabolic diseases (with T2DM as major interest).  About 25 years ago, simultaneously with a Canadian working group, KH Ladwig was among the first to elucidate the impact of a depressed mood as prognostic risk factor during the post-acute course after a myocardial infarction (post-infarction depression) which opened world-wide research initiatives on this topic.  He is currently involved in an ongoing task force of the European Society of Cardiology on mental health issues in coronary heart disease and in a working group of the DGK on a statement concerning Implantable defibrillators: Change/ deactivation/ explantation against the background of age and concomitant diseases.
More on Karl-Heinz Ladwig

Professor Dr. Peter Zwanzger is Medical Director of the kbo-Inn-Salzach Hospital, Clinical Center for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Neurology and Psychosomatic Medicine in Wasserburg am Inn, a teaching hospital of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. He is also head of the Anxiety Research Group at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the same university. He is author and co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles, books and book chapters. Professor Zwanzger is board member of the German Society of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy DGPPN as well as president oft he German Society of Anxiety Research (GAF) His main clinical and research focus is on neurobiology, psychopharmacology and psychotherapy of depression and anxiety disorders, neurostimulation, E-mental Health and Virtual Reality (VR).

Thomas Ehring is Full Professor and Chair of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Treatment at the Department of Psychology, LMU Munich. He is also Research Director of both the Outpatient Center for Psychological Treatment and the clinical training program MUNIP at LMU. After having received his PhD from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London in 2004, he held positions at the Universities of Amsterdam (NL) as well as Bielefeld and Münster (Germany) before joining LMU Munich. His research focuses on the etiology and psychological treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with a specific focus on treatment of complex posttraumatic stress presentations, memory-based mechanisms in PTSD, and understanding and preventing treatment failure.

Jan Deussing heads the Molecular Neurogenetics research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany. His work focuses on genetic and environmental factors that contribute to stress-related psychiatric disorders and their interplay in shaping disease risk. By employing genetically engineered mouse models, he explores how gene × environment interactions manifest in physiological and behavioural disturbances associated with these disorders. Additionally, Dr. Deussing is known for his work on neuropeptides and associated neural circuits underlying adaptive stress responses, shedding light on their roles in both normal functioning and pathological conditions.