Huge impact in the treatment of chronic pain
Herta Flor is Scientific Director of the Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology Institute at the ZI. She is being awarded an honorary doctorate by VU University for her important scientific contributions to the field of neuropsychology. “Flor’s work is having a huge impact around the theory and the treatment of chronic pain, such as lower back pain,” says her honorary supervisor, Professor Jaap van Dieën. “Her research focuses upon the role played by learning and memory processes in the brain, and the association between chronic pain and changes within the brain. This makes it important to the human movement sciences as well as neuropsychology and hence appropriate to the interdisciplinary approach to medical research adopted by VU University within the profile theme Human Health & Life Sciences.”
Herta Flor studied Psychology at the University of Tübingen, where she also qualified as professor in 1990. Already in 1993, she accepted a C3 professorship in Clinical Psychology and Psychosomatics (in 1995: C4 professorship) at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In the year 2000, she accepted a C4 professorship in Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology at the Mannheim Medical School of the University of Heidelberg, which was linked to the management of the Neuropsychology Institute at the ZI. Since 2005, she has been Scientific Director of the Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology Institute at the ZI. Her scientific areas of expertise are pain research, clinical psychology, psychotherapy and neuropsychology, among others. Her efforts in securing external funding are exemplified by the successful special research area 636 „Learning, Memory and Brain Plasticity: Implications for Psychopathology“ at the University of Heidelberg, which is in its third and final funding stage. Her special concern in this has always been using external funding to advance the careers of young scientists. During her scientific career, Professor Flor has received many prizes for her research. The details of her resume can be read in the ZI homepage https://www.zi-mannheim.de/forschung/personen/person/89.html.
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