The brain | Psychiatrist | Author
Iris Sommer is trained as a doctor and psychiatrist, and graduated with honours in the field of schizophrenia. Iris Sommer can tell us everything about the mysteries of our brain.
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Iris Sommer is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. Her primary goal is to improve the treatment for people with complex brain disorders. In 2022, she received the Huibrechtsen Prize for Science and Society and was a Distinguished Lorentz Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advances Sciences. In 2026, she received the Stevin Prize, one of the highest accolades in science.
Currently, her research focuses on the brain-gut axis, including nutritional psychiatry, AI for mental health, and optimal care for women with psychiatric disorders.
Sommer has written several popular science books, including Faltering Brains and The Female Brain (2020). In 2022, she released the cookbook Feed Your Brain, a publication by the Brain Foundation, and recently her book The Bacteria and the Brain was released. Her latest book, The Voice of the Brain, was published in September 2026.
Iris Sommer graduated cum laude with a focus on schizophrenia and started the Voices Clinic in Utrecht, where she researches auditory hallucinations. As a professor and president of the Schizophrenia International Research Society, she speaks about the female brain, brain disorders, and AI in mental healthcare. Request a quote for Iris Sommer.
The female brain is not the same as the male brain. There are also differences in interests, personality, and risk inclination. The extent to which these are caused by chromosomes/hormones “nature” or by differences in treatment and opportunities “nurture” is difficult to determine, as both influences reinforce each other. What is clear, however, is that equal treatment does not lead to equal opportunities. In this presentation, I acknowledge the differences and show how unequal treatment could break through the power asymmetry.
Language makes us human. Right? But how do we relate to new research showing that animals also have language? And has the advent of linguistic AI models cracked that ‘uniquely human’ trait? I’ll take you on a journey through the history of language, from the human brain to AI. We start with signing gorillas, the brain of a newborn baby, discussing how mental disorders manifest in language, how AI can detect this, and the loss of language in dementia. We rarely realise how remarkable our language is until something goes wrong. Step by step, I’ll show you that with language we not only communicate, but that language is the foundation of everything we are: our self-awareness, our thinking, our soul.
What do gut bacteria have to do with your brain? They’re not supposed to get there at all, right? Gut bacteria are crucial for our immune system, but they also appear to influence brain health. At birth, the brain is not fully developed. The immune system also has a lot to learn. A good microbiome in the young child’s gut helps the development of the brain and immune system and can prevent the risk of chronic conditions. Even in adulthood, a healthy microbiome can reduce the likelihood of psychiatric disorders.
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