German Sonderwege in Postwar Brain Research: Institutional Strategies for Reinventing Behavioral Research After Nazism.

This article explores how scientists positioned brain research in postwar Germany. Detlev Ploog imported technology-brain stimulation with implanted electrodes-to help reclaim the Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry's international stature, providing a neurophysiological basis for biological psychiatry and making biological research foundational for philosophical anthropology. Bernhard Hassenstein and Werner Reichardt, by contrast, kept such philosophical prospects at bay. They did not engage the rhetoric of information typical for the propagation of cybernetics as universal science. Instead, they focused on mathematical strategies in the analysis of complex behavior patterns, preparing the ground for the emergence of computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence.