Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Learning from Alzheimer's Disease

Archive of News

On this page you'll find old news about the project "Learning From Alzheimer's Disease".
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Workshop: Classification in the Era of Personalised Medicine

Workshop: Classification in the Era of Personalised Medicine

In this workshop philosophy of medicine meets health policy: What is the role of classification in medicine today - and what follows from it? We are looking forward to a exciting discussion with Dr. Anke Büter (Hanover), Prof. Kathryn Tabb (Columbia University), Dr. Katharina Jacke (Berlin), Oriana Walker (Berlin), Alfred Freeborn (Berlin) and Thomas Müller (Federal Ministry of Health).
  • Workshop: Classification in the Era of Personalised Medicine
  • 2019-07-22T09:30:00+02:00
  • 2019-07-22T16:30:00+02:00
  • In this workshop philosophy of medicine meets health policy: What is the role of classification in medicine today - and what follows from it? We are looking forward to a exciting discussion with Dr. Anke Büter (Hanover), Prof. Kathryn Tabb (Columbia University), Dr. Katharina Jacke (Berlin), Oriana Walker (Berlin), Alfred Freeborn (Berlin) and Thomas Müller (Federal Ministry of Health).
  • When Jul 22, 2019 from 09:30 to 04:30
  • Where HU - Friedrichstraße 191-3
  • iCal

In the summer semester 2019 the junior research group presents our workshop "Classification in the Era of Personalised Medicineh". On the 22nd July, we want to discuss in a workshop with Anke Büter (Hanover), Kathryn Tabb (Columbia University), Katharina Jacke (Berlin), Oriana Walker (Berlin), Alfred Freeborn (Berlin) and Thomas Müller (Federal Ministry of Health) questions of personalised medicine in philosophy of medicine and health policy.

 

Please find the announcement here:

 

                   Aushang_Personalised Medicine _klein

 

A registration befor the 18th July is mandatory (seraphina.rekowski[at]hu-berlin.de)!

 

 

 

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Workshop: Oral History in the History of Biomedical Research

Workshop: Oral History in the History of Biomedical Research

This workshop wants to offer the opportunity to discuss with our guest Jenny Bangham (Cambridge) the role of oral history in the history of biomedical research.
  • When Jun 19, 2019 from 02:00 to 05:00
  • Where HU Berlin - Friedrichstraße 191-193
  • iCal

In the summer semester 2019 the junior research group presents our workshop "Oral History in the History of Biomedical Research". On the 19th June, we want to discuss in a workshop with Jenny Bangham (Cambridge) on the basis of ongoing research projects the role of oral history in the history of the late twenthieth century biomedical research.

Please find the announcement here:

 

               Aushang Oral History klein

 

We will be glad to receive your registration:

 

seraphina.rekowski[at]hu-berlin.de

 

 

The Cultural Ambivalence of Science Studies

New: Review by Alfred Freeborn on Karine Chemla and Evelyn Fox Keller "Cultures Without Culturalism. The Making of Scientific Knowledge", Durham, Duke University Press, 2017.
  • When Nov 24, 2018 from 01:00 to 02:00
  • iCal

 

Freeborn, Alfred: Review of Cultures Without Culturalism, in: Journal for General Philosophy of Science (2018): 1-6.

 

 

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Borderline cases and effective theories in philosophy of medicine

Borderline cases and effective theories in philosophy of medicine

Lara was a visitor of Thomas Pradeu’s group at ImmunoConcept from Sept 24 to Oct 5, 2018.
  • When Sep 24, 2018 02:00 to Oct 04, 2018 03:00
  • iCal
Abstract:

 

Much of the scholarship in philosophy of medicine has centered on more or less clearly defined disease classes. For instance, theories of causality have usually presumed the existence of disease entities. Also most philosophers who study medical classification systems, and who acknowledge that some disease categories obviously fail to match natural kinds, conceptualize this situation as a mere empirical problem, and hence a provisional shortcoming of the current state of biomedical knowledge. For instance, philosopher Dominic Murphy “bets” that given enough scientific advances, the currently disordered world of psychiatric diseases will eventually fall into neat categories. In the first part of my talk, I argue that this is a flawed view of regarding so-called borderline cases, i.e. cases that cannot be clearly assigned into one disease category or another, or that are in-between ‘the normal’ and ‘the pathological’, as theoretically unimportant challenges. In the second part, I provide a typology of sources for borderline cases, and exemplify why we need to take in-between states seriously as phenomena that drive a lot of medical research and that have substantial real-world effects. This does neither rule out that the conceptual zones of borderline cases are subject to dynamic developments due to altered scientific understandings or taxonomic reconfigurations, nor that clear cases exist. What the focus on the borderline implies, however, is to rethink the explanatory reach of our disease-entity-based theories in philosophy of medicine. In the last part of my talk, I sketch a roadmap for doing so. This consists of replacing Murphy’s bet with putting philosophical theories (e.g. of medical causation or efficacy) through “the borderline test”. In borrowing from physics the notion of “effective theories”, I argue that spelling out the limitations of the domain of application of a given theory might, also in medicine, yield less simple but more adequate models of the world.

 

A recording of the talk can be found here.

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in Kraepelin’s clinic, 1909–1912

Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in Kraepelin’s clinic, 1909–1912

New publication note: Current Issue of "History of Human Sciences" with an article by Lara Keuck.
  • When Apr 01, 2018 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal
Titelbild: Psychopathological Fringes: Knowledge making and boundary work in 20th century psychiatry

 

Abstract:

 

Existing accounts of the early history of Alzheimer’s disease have focused on Alois Alzheimer’s (1864–1915) publications of two ‘peculiar cases’ of middle-aged patients who showed symptoms associated with senile dementia, and Emil Kraepelin’s (1856–1926) discussion of these and a few other cases under the newly introduced name of ‘Alzheimer’s disease’ in his Textbook of Psychiatry. This article questions the underpinnings of these accounts that rely mainly on publications and describe ‘presenility’ as a defining characteristic of the disease. Drawing on archival research in the Munich psychiatric clinic, in which Alzheimer and Kraepelin practised, this article looks at the use of the category as a diagnostic label in practice. It argues that the first cases only got their exemplary status as key referents of Alzheimer’s disease in later readings of the original publications. In the 1900s, the published cases rather functioned as material to think about the limits of the category of senile dementia. The examination of paper technologies in the Munich psychiatric clinic reveals that the use of the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease was not limited to patients of a certain age and did not exclude ‘senile’ cases. Moreover, the archival records reflect that many diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease were noted in the medical records as suspicions rather than conclusions. Against this background, the article argues that in theory and practice, Alzheimer’s disease was not treated as a well-defined disease entity in the Munich clinic, but as an exploratory category for the clinical and histopathological investigation of varieties of organic brain diseases.

 

from: 

Lara Keuck: "Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in Kraepelin’s clinic, 1909–1912", in: History of Human Sciences 32/2 (2018), S.42-64.

 

The article is published in the context of a thematical issue about "Psychopathological Fringes: Knowledge making and boundary work in 20th century psychiatry".

 

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Seminar Series: Histories of Biomedical Knowledge

Seminar Series: Histories of Biomedical Knowledge

The research group offers a forum for young scholars to present and discuss their projects on the history of the biomedical sciences

The junior research group presents our new seminar series "Histories of Biomedical Knowledge". During summer semester 2018, we host a series of presentations of pre-circulated papers by young scholars and their historiographical approaches to the diverging field of the biomedical sciences in the long twentieth century.

Please find the full program, including abstracts, here:

 

Aushang Histories of biomedical knowledge 150dpi

 

 

We will be glad to receive your registration:

 

seraphina.rekowski[at]hu-berlin.de

 

 

 

Previous Guests of the research group:

 

Jenny Bangham (University of Cambridge)

Nick Binney (University of Exeter)

Eric Engstrom (Humboldt University of Berlin)

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | History as a Biomedical Matter: Recent Reassessments of the First Cases of Alzheimer’s Disease

History as a Biomedical Matter: Recent Reassessments of the First Cases of Alzheimer’s Disease

New publication note: Current issue of "History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences" with an article by Lara Keuck
  • When Nov 27, 2017 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal
Abstract

 

This paper examines medical scientists’ accounts of their rediscoveries and reassessments of old materials. It looks at how historical patient files and brain samples of the first cases of Alzheimer’s disease became reused as scientific objects of inquiry in the 1990s, when a genetic neuropathologist from Munich and a psychiatrist from Frankfurt lead searches for left-overs of Alzheimer’s ‘founder cases’ from the 1900s. How and why did these researchers use historical methods, materials and narratives, and why did the biomedical community cherish their findings as valuable scientific facts about Alzheimer’s disease? The paper approaches these questions by analysing how researchers conceptualised ‘history’ while backtracking and reassessing clinical and histological materials from the past. It elucidates six ways of conceptualising history as a biomedical matter: (1) scientific assessments of the past, i.e. natural scientific understandings of ‘historical facts’; (2) history in biomedicine, e.g. uses of old histological collections in present day brain banks; (3) provenance research, e.g. applying historical methods to ensure the authenticity of brain samples; (4) technical biomedical history, e.g. reproducing original staining techniques to identify how old histological slides were made; (5) founding traditions, i.e. references to historical objects and persons within founding stories of scientific communities; and (6) priority debates, e.g. evaluating the role particular persons played in the discovery of a disease such as Alzheimer’s. Against this background, the paper concludes with how the various ways of using and understanding ‘history’ were put forward to re-present historic cases as ‘proto-types’ for studying Alzheimer’s disease in the present.

 

from:

Lara Keuck: "History as a Biomedical Matter: Recent Reassessments of the First Cases of Alzheimer’s Disease", in: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 40 (2018).

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Measuring the 'Broken Brain': Neuroimaging and the 'Biological Revolution' in American and British Psychiatry

Measuring the 'Broken Brain': Neuroimaging and the 'Biological Revolution' in American and British Psychiatry

Talk: Alfred Freeborn, 21 September 2017, University of Leeds
  • When Sep 20, 2017 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal

Alfred Freeborn presents his paper "Measuring the 'Broken Brain': Neuroimaging and the 'Biological Revolution' in American and British Psychiatry" at the Making Biological Minds Conference in Leeds.

 

 

Abstract

 

In 1984, the American psychiatrist Nancy Andreasen published a book entitled The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry in which she announced ‘a new mode of perception’ for psychiatry, in which mental illnesses are to be understood ‘in terms of how the brain works and how the brain breaks down.’ Central to this ‘revolution’ was the use of imaging technologies to, in Andreasen’s words, ‘look directly to the brain.’ Over the next thirty years, Andreasen and her colleagues in Iowa used imaging technologies to investigate schizophrenia in the living brain. This paper focusses on the specific experimental designs constructed to measure psychiatric illnesses in the living brain. Rather than establish from the outset the success, failure or legitimacy of a “biological revolution”, by following the evolution of research practices, the shifting goal posts of the discipline’s epistemic expectations reveal the temporal dynamics of psychiatric knowledge as they emerge and as they become represented by the actors’ themselves. Moreover, this approach highlights, more effectively than any critique of biologism alone, exactly how the achievements of research are distinct, less impressive, and more complex, than the heady claims in funding documents, popular images of science and science journalism. In short, the achievement of the last forty years has been to create a radically new space of measurement for the brain: while its clinical significance is as of yet unclear, this transformation has greatly affected the entire ecology of psychiatric theory and practice.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Slicing the Cortex to Study Mental Illness: Alois Alzheimer’s Pictures of Equivalence

Slicing the Cortex to Study Mental Illness: Alois Alzheimer’s Pictures of Equivalence

New: "Vital Models: The Making and Use of Models in the Brain Sciences" with a chapter by Lara Keuck, 12.08.2107
  • When Aug 12, 2017 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal

Vital Models

 

 

Lara Keuck: "Slicing the Cortex to Study Mental Illness: Alois Alzheimer’s Pictures of Equivalence"

in:

Tara Mahfoud, Sam McLean and Nikolas Rose (eds.): Vital Models. The Making and Use of Models in the Brain Sciences. Cambridge: Elsevier 2017.

 

 

Further information:

https://www.elsevier.com/books/vital-models/unknown/978-0-12-804215-1

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Neuroimaging and the late-modern "Biological Revolution" in Psychiatry, 1976-2005

Neuroimaging and the late-modern "Biological Revolution" in Psychiatry, 1976-2005

Talk: Alfred Freeborn, 12 July 2017 10:15 am, Humboldt University of Berlin, Friedrichstraße 191-193 Room 5028
  • When Jul 12, 2017 from 10:15 to 11:45
  • Where Humboldt University of Berlin, Friedrichstraße 191-193 Room 5028
  • iCal

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Expert Uncertainty and Amateur History: The Case of Alzheimer’s Disease

Expert Uncertainty and Amateur History: The Case of Alzheimer’s Disease

Workshop contribution: Lara Keuck 31 May 2017, Zurich, Center History of Knowledge (ZGW)
  • When May 31, 2017 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • Where Zurich, Zentrum Geschichte des Wissens
  • iCal

Lara Keuck contributes to the Workshop "The Emergence and Dissolution of (Medical) Knowledge. Uncertainty and Openness" at "Center History of Knowledge". The workshop is a closed event - participation is allowed by permission of the organisers only. For further information see program below.

 

Chart: Zentrum Geschichte des Wissens

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Geschichte unter dem Mikroskop: Über die Wiederentdeckung der ersten Alzheimer-Fälle

Geschichte unter dem Mikroskop: Über die Wiederentdeckung der ersten Alzheimer-Fälle

Talk: Lara Keuck 15 May 2017, 6:15 pm Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Universitätsstraße 15 Kollegienhaus room 1.011
  • When May 15, 2017 from 06:15 to 07:30
  • Where Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Universitätsstraße 15 Kollegienhaus room 1.011
  • iCal

Lara Keuck is invited by the Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg to speek about the rediscovery of the first cases of Alzheimer's disease. Her talk is part of this semester's "Medizinhistorische Vortragsreihe".

 

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Longue durée History of Disease: Historiographical Challenges

Longue durée History of Disease: Historiographical Challenges

Guest Talk: Nick Binney (Exeter) 10 May2017, 10:15 am, Humboldt University of Berlin, Friedrichstraße 191-193, room 5028
  • When May 10, 2017 from 10:15 to 11:59
  • Where Humboldt University of Berlin, Friedrichstraße 191-193, room 5028
  • iCal

We are happy to have Nick Binney to talk on "Longue durée History of Disease: Historiographical Challenges". The presentation is part of this semester's "Kolloquium zur Geschichte des Wissens".

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | The Spirit of the 'Isle': The Making of an Isolated Playground for Biomedical Research in the German Baltic Sea

The Spirit of the 'Isle': The Making of an Isolated Playground for Biomedical Research in the German Baltic Sea

Talk: Christof Sendhardt 6 April 2017, 9 am, Harvard University, Barker Center
  • When Apr 06, 2017 from 09:00 to 10:30
  • Where Harvard University, Barker Center
  • iCal

Christof Sendhardt presents his paper "The Spirit of the 'Isle': The Making of an Isolated Playground for Biomedical Research in the German Baltic Sea" at the conference 'Technical Landscapes: Aesthetics and the Environment in the History of Science and Art' at Harvard University.

 

Further information:

http://www.techlandscapes.com/

 

 

Abstract

This talk takes an historical perspective on the concept of the island as an isolated landscape. It takes foot and mouth disease (FMD) research on the German Isle of Riems in the first half of the twentieth century as a case study to examine how the concept of isolation was both supported and at the same time undermined through the use of delimiting practices and connective technologies. At the end of the nineteenth century FMD was one of the most widespread diseases with millions of pigs and cattle suffering from it. This situation prompted the Prussian State to incorporate the field of bacteriology with its promising achievements into the search for a cure. When the Ministry of Agriculture advocated the transfer of FMD research to Riems in 1907 in order to avoid dangerous outbreaks, the island in the German Baltic Sea became the object of a transformation process that led to the establishment of an exclusion area, the development of a modern research infrastructure and the integration of hitherto agricultural spaces into a scientific landscape. I argue that the Isle of Riems not only underwent a significant reconfiguration, but also shaped FMD research in turn: the island provided enough space to become a playground for the scientist’s desires for up-to-date laboratory buildings, but not enough to ensure autonomous food production for the laboratory animals, which led to constant exchange with its surroundings. Moreover, the perceived isolation formed the basis of an identity that the later director Otto Waldmann termed ‘Riems spirit’ (Riemsgeist), denoting that far-off Riems provided the common ground for living, working and recreation. Since this triad as well as the ideal of the scientific laboratory were urban, their displacement onto a remote, rural island and the back and forth between isolating and de-isolating processes thus contest clear cut dichotomies between ‘culture’ and ’nature’, between ‘remote’ and ‘central’ – revealing the landscape of the ‘research isle’ as ambiguous.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | The Twenty-First Review of the Alzheimer Conundrum

The Twenty-First Review of the Alzheimer Conundrum

New: Review by Lara Keuck on Margaret Lock's "The Alzheimer Conundrum: Entanglements of Dementia and Aging" Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2013
  • When Mar 09, 2017 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal

Lara Keuck: The Twenty-First Book Review of The Alzheimer Conundrum, in: Biosocieties 12 (2017): 176-181.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Philosophie der biomedizinischen Wissenschaften

Philosophie der biomedizinischen Wissenschaften

New: "Grundriss Wissenschaftsphilosophie: Die Philosophie der Einzelwissenschaften" with a contribution from Lara Huber and Lara Keuck, 17.02.2017
  • When Sep 20, 2017 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal

Grundriss Wissenschaftsphilosophie

 

Lara Huber and Lara Keuck: "Philosophie der biomedizinischen Wissenschaften"

in:

Simon Lohse and Thomas Reydon (eds.): Grundriss Wissenschaftsphilosophie. Die Philosophien der Einzelwissenschaften. Hamburg: Meiner 2017, 287-318.

 

 

Further information:

https://meiner.de/grundriss-wissenschaftsphilosophie-12426.html

What is Philosophy of Medicine Good for?

New: Review and interview by Lara Keuck with Cornelius Borck on his new book: Medizinphilosophie zur Einführung (Hamburg, Junius Verlag) for the History of the Human Sciences Blog.
  • When Feb 08, 2017 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Niklas Luhmann and the Observation of Modern Science

Niklas Luhmann and the Observation of Modern Science

Talk: Alfred Freeborn 13 January 2017, 11:20 am University of Leeds, Blenheim Terrace Seminar room 1.17
  • When Jan 13, 2017 12:00 to Jan 14, 2017 11:59
  • iCal

 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Projects | Learning from Alzheimer's Disease | Archive of News | Thinking with Gatekeepers: An Essay on Psychiatric Sources

Thinking with Gatekeepers: An Essay on Psychiatric Sources

New: Preprint "Invisibility and Labour in the Human Sciences" with a contribution by Lara Keuck
  • When Nov 11, 2016 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal

You can download Lara Keuck's chapter "Thinking with Gatekeepers: An Essay on Psychiatric Sources" here.

Vagueness in Psychiatry

New: "Vagueness in Psychiatry", edited by Geert Keil, Lara Keuck and Rico Hauswald, and with three contributions by Lara Keuck
  • When Nov 03, 2016 from 12:00 to 11:59
  • iCal

On 3 November Oxford University Press extends its book series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry with the volume "Vagueness in Psychiatry". Lara Keuck contributed three chapters:

 

  • "Vagueness in psychiatry: An overview", together with Geert Keil und Rico Hauswald

 

  • "Indeterminancy in medical classification: On continuity, uncertainty, and vagueness", together with Rico Hauswald

 

  • "Reflections on what is normal, what is not, and fuzzy boundaries in psychiatric classifications", together with Allen Frances

 

to:

Geert Keil, Lara Keuck und Rico Hauswald (eds.): Vagueness in Psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016.

 

Further information:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/vagueness-in-psychiatry-9780198722373?cc=de&lang=en&#