The Paul Flechsig Institute of Brain Research exists in its present form at the Faculty of Medicine (former Sector of Medicine) at Leipzig University since December 11th, 1972. It can be traced back to the brain anatomist and psychiatrist Paul Flechsig (1847-1929), who got famous especially for his work on the myelogenesis of the human brain. Paul Flechsig founded, after his appointment to the chair of psychiatry (1877) and after completion of the construction of the clinic, the "Brain Anatomy Laboratory" (1883). This was established as an independent department in 1927. The head of this department (now termed "Brain Research Institute") became Richard Arwed Pfeifer (1877-1957) who thus was the first extraordinary Professor for Brain Research in Germany.
After destruction (1943) and reconstruction (1946), it became an independent research Institute in 1957. Directors of the institute were first (1959) Wolfgang Wünscher (1922-1981), then (1973) Ernst Winkelmann (1931-2005). Already 1962 a Department of Clinical Neurophysiology (head: Lothar Pickenhain, 1920) had been founded in the Neurological Clinic; this was continued as "Department of Neurophysiology" since 1966 (head: Fritz Klingberg, 1930). In 1965 a Department of Neurochemistry was separated from the Institute of Biochemistry (head: Dietmar Biesold, 1925-1991). In 1974, under the directorate of Dietmar Biesold, the two departments were united with the "Brain Research Institute" and the institute was renamed to "Paul Flechsig Institute of Brain Research".
1993 the entire institute moved together into a common building (the former home of the Deutsche Hochschule für Körperkultur), under the directorate of Volker Bigl (1942-2005). Since April 2015 (head: Thomas Arendt) the institute is located in the Central Research Building of the Medical Campus Liebigstrasse.
