Dr. Maximilian Friedrich

Maximilian Friedrich is an attending neurologist and research group leader with a focus on balance and movement disorders and their therapeutic neuromodulation. His work lies at the interface of clinical neuroscience, computer vision, and neuroimaging, aiming to transform clinical observations into quantitative, circuit-informed digital biomarkers.

Before joining Ulm University, he trained in neurology and psychiatry at the University Hospital Würzburg. Awarded a clinician-scientist grant, he conducted research there and at Würzburg’s Institute of Neurobiology, before joining the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston as a postdoc. His research spanned computer vision-enabled quantification of movement abnormalities in both rodent models and humans with neurological disorders as well as circuit mapping techniques such as optogenetics, deep brain stimulation and connectome-based network mapping. 

Supported by research awards from the Jung Stiftung für Wissenschaft und Forschung as well as the NeuroTech Innovation Prize, he leads the "Precision Movement Analysis and Brain Mapping Group", an interdisciplinary team integrating clinical neuroscience, computer science, and biomedical engineering at the Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Ulm. The group develops and validates quantitative movement biomarkers and maps them to clinically and therapeutically relevant brain networks, with the goal of improving diagnosis, monitoring, and neuromodulation-based treatment of neurological disorders: from pixels and voxels to clinical meaning. Further information can be found at: https://www.uniklinik-ulm.de/neurologie/forschung-arbeitsgruppen/precision-movement-analysis-and-brain-mapping-ag-friedrich.html.