Thomas E. Schlaepfer MD

Thomas E. Schlaepfer, MD is Vice-Chair of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital Bonn, Germany, where he is also Dean of Medical Education; he holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Mental Hygiene at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. He is a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) and chair of the Task Force on Brain Stimulation of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry. He received his medical training at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland. Since 1997, he has been an Associate Professor in the same department, as well as the Department of Mental Hygiene at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Dr. Schlaepfer focused the research of his group on translational, functional neuroimaging, and clinical effects of neuromodulation interventions (including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation, magnetic seizure therapy, and deep brain stimulation) for treatment-resistant major depression. After the first human application in the year 2000, his group developed the clinical use of magnetic seizure therapy (MST) for depression and more recently the hypothesis-guided therapeutic use of deep brain stimulation of parts of the human reward system (Nucleus Accumbens and Medial Forebrain Bundle) in the same disorder. In light of the significance of neuroethical issues of brain stimulation treatments for psychiatric patients, Dr. Schlaepfer established the interdisciplinary consortium "Deep Brain Stimulation in Psychiatry Guidance for Responsible Research and Application" aiming to generate ethical guidance in this field.