Arne Dietrich is Associate Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at AUB. He holds a Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience from the University of Georgia, USA.

Prof. Dietrich's early empirical work focused on the neurobiology of learning and memory, and he published several papers on the functions of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. His present research interests, however, focus on three major areas:

• Cognitive neuroscience of physical exercise

• Neural basis of altered states of consciousness

• Neurocognitive mechanisms of creativity

Prof. Dietrich has written an introductory textbook on consciousness and is responsible for two, entirely new mechanistic explanations for the effects of exercise on brain function, the transient hypofrontality theory, which he also developed into the first comprehensive theory on the neural basis of altered states of consciousness, and the endocannabinoid hypothesis. He also published several influential papers on the brain mechanisms of creativity.