Welcome

Stressful stimuli in healthy subjects trigger activation of a consistent and reproducible set of brain regions; yet, the notion that there is a single and constant stress neuromatrix is not sustainable. [more]

About 1 in 100 children suffers from an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These neurodevelopmental disorders are clinically defined by impairments in social interaction and by restricted, repetitive and stereotyped behaviour. Most of the autistic behaviours become manifest in the first years of life: a time when brain circuits are being shaped by sensory experiences. [more]

Memories are encoded within sparsely distributed neuronal ensembles. Using Arc-dVenus immediate early gene reporter mice, we have been able to visually-identify and electrophysiologically characterize neuronal ensembles specifically recruited during fear learning. [more]

Efforts over the past few years to develop fMRI tools to study functional connectivity in the awake mouse will be described. [more]

An individual neuron in the brain possesses approximately 10,000 synapses, many of which are hundreds of microns away from the cell body, which can process independent streams of information. During synaptic transmission and plasticity, remodeling of the local proteome occurs via the regulated synthesis and degradation of new proteins. I will discuss previous and current studies aimed at understanding how localized mRNAs and protein synthesis contributes to synaptic function and plasticity. [more]

Neurodegenerative and Neuropsychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia (SZ), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or Alzheimer's disease (AD) are multifactorial and are caused by variable combinations of genetic and environmental risk factors. [more]

Since August Weismann (1834-1914) formulated the distinction between innate and acquired characteristics at the end of the 19th century, the debate relating to the inheritance of acquired traits has raised many controversies in the scientific community. [more]

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a severe psychiatric syndrome with very high prevalence and - socioeconomic impact. Despite extensive research, its pathophysiology is poorly understood. Monoamine-based antidepressant drugs (AD) have slow onset of action and limited efficacy in MDD patients. Preclinical studies reveal that ADs trigger a series of slow adaptive mechanisms, presumably involved in the clinical response to AD. [more]

We are glad to invite you to this year’s Career Day, which will take place at the Max Planck institute of Psychiatry on Wednesday, May 11th 2016! The event aims at informing current PhD students on future career options in science and industry with short talks and informal discussions. A broad spectrum of relevant fields will be covered, including pathways in academia, industry solutions for clinical studies, medical writing, health-care consulting, and patent attorneyship. [more]

Psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism spectrum disorders are considered neurodevelopmental synaptopathies. Compelling evidence has been obtained from large-scale genome-wide association studies which identified a plethora of genetic variations within hundreds of genes encoding components of the post-synaptic compartment and cellular as well as nuclear calcium signaling mediating excitation-transcription coupling. [more]

Information about the state of the world reaches the brain through the senses. In contrast to the traditional view postulating that sensory information propagates through the brain in a feed;forward manner, it has recently been suggested that perception is as an active process with the brain constantly generating hypotheses about the causes of its sensory inputs in order to anticipate future events. [more]

Anxiety disorders are complex diseases with largely unknown etiology. We have taken a cross-species approach to identify genes that regulate anxiety-like behavior using inbred mouse strains that differ in their innate anxiety levels. [more]

There is mounting evidence to support a role for developmentally regulated epigenetic variation in the molecular etiology of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. In this talk I will present on-going work from our group aimed at identifying epigenetic variation associated with a diverse range of neuropsychiatric phenotypes including schizophrenia, autism and dementia. [more]

tba [more]

with Markus Heinrichs, Jonathan Seckl, Helen Mayberg, René Hen [more]

Recent advances in the field of stem cell biology have made it possible to model human developmental processes in vitro. We combine stem cell based in vitro systems with single-cell transcriptomics analysis to reconstruct human organ development. In my talk I will present our efforts on reconstructing neurogenesis during two biological scenarios. [more]

The expression of instinctive behaviors related to ingestion, reproduction, and defense depend on evolutionarily ancient behavioral circuits located in the hypothalamus.  It has been proposed that neural activity in these hypothalamic circuits encodes an internal motivational state that is essential for the expression of instinctive behavior and may be related to the emotion that accompanies instinctive urges in humans. [more]

Inappropriate assignment of emotional valence and dysfunctions of the circuits that govern valence processing are thought to underlie many psychiatric diseases including anxiety, depression, addiction and compulsive disorders.  [more]

t.b.a. [more]

Neurotrophins are small dimeric proteins encoded by 4 genes in mouse and human. They signal either through ligand-specific tyrosine kinase receptors or the pan-neurotrophin receptor p75, a member of the tumour necrosis receptor family. As no gene closely related to neurotrophins have been identified in short-lived species typically used by geneticists, progress has been slow in elucidating neurotrophin signalling.  [more]

Both neuroimaging and genetic data are possessed of very small effect sizes, and very high dimensions. When these data types are combined and analysed using conventional univariate methods, widely recognised statistical problems associated with these traits are compounded. Multivariate methods have shown promise in their potential to answer questions in psychiatry and neuroscience that univariate methods are not capable of answering. [more]

The neuronal mechanisms of associative learning have been under intense investigation for many decades. While synaptic plasticity as the putative cellular mechanism of learning has been studied in great detail, we know much less about the interactions of different types of neurons in the local network that lead to memory formation. In particular, all aspects of circuit function are tightly controlled by different types of inhibitory interneurons, but their role in learning is little understood. [more]

Understanding the genetic regulatory code and how errors in the regulatory programme can lead to diseases is the research topic of our lab. [more]

The reproducibility of neuroscientific research findings is so low that some researchers are talking about a replication crisis in neuroscience. The true extent of the problem is hard to estimate, but estimates from preclinical research in medicine to cognitive research in human subjects are dire. One of the best predictors of a failure to replicate: findings based on p-values just under 0.05. [more]

The brain circuits underlying behavioral fear have been extensively studied over the last decades. While the vast majority of experimental studies assess fear as a transient state of apprehension in response to a discrete threat, such phasic states of fear can shift to a sustained anxious apprehension, particularly in face of diffuse cues with unpredictable environmental contingencies. [more]

How to attenuate traumatic memories has long been the focus of intensive research efforts, as traumatic memories are extremely persistent and heavily impinge on the quality of life. [more]

tba [more]

Nutritional decisions are key determinants of health, wellbeing and aging. We want to understand how animals decide what to eat and how these decisions affect the fitness of the animal. [more]

The NO system since long has been suggested to play a role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and impulsive behaviors. Evidence came from animal models as well as human postmortem studies; however, in recent years also human genetic data argued in favor of this hypothesis. [more]

The distributed temporal activity in neuronal circuits of the prefrontal cortex combines emotional information with episodic and spatial memory to guide behavioural action. Single neurons of often unknown identity have been shown to exhibit specific firing patterns during spatial navigation and decision-making tasks. The cerebral cortex consists of highly diverse neuronal types with distinct synaptic connectivity, molecular expression profile and contribution to network activity. Neurons can be divided into excitatory pyramidal cells, which use glutamate as a neurotransmitter and give both local and long-range axonal projections, and inhibitory interneurons, which are GABAergic and control the activity and timing of pyramidal cells mainly through local axons. These neurons can be further subdivided on the basis of their distinct axo-dendritic arborisations, subcellular post-synaptic targets, and by their differential expression of signalling molecules, including receptors, ion channels, neuropeptides, transcription factors and Ca²⁺ binding proteins. We aim to determine how distinct types of neuron support the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex. [more]

An isolated experience can produce long-lasting memories, but learning often involves multiple interactions with related information. The outcome of these interactions could be integrated incrementally, independent of when individual interactions occur. Alternatively, integration might occur within dedicated periods of time, breaking down learning processes into discrete time units. I will provide evidence that related information acquired within time windows of 5h (time units for learning) is combined to determine whether and what mice learn. [more]

Projects available will be presented to invited candidates by the IMPRS-TP faculty members during the interview week. [more]

The replication crisis has hit several scientific fields. The most systematic investigation has been done in psychology, which revealed replication rates less than 40% (Open Science Collaboration, 2015). However, the same problem has been well documented in other disciplines, for example preclinical cancer research or economics. [more]

Understanding how social influence shapes biological processes is a central challenge in contemporary science, essential for achieving progress in a variety of fields ranging from the organization and evolution of coordinated collective action among cells, or animals, to the dynamics of information exchange in human societies. [more]

The Lead Discovery Center GmbH (LDC) transforms results from basic research into novel drug candidates. LDC collaborates with basic researchers to leverage excellent biomedical basic research. LDC's academic network represents thousands of scientists and a large pipeline of novel ideas for treating diseases with unmet medical need. LDC has established a flexible, but industry-type drug discovery infrastructure. LDC's current portfolio contains ~20 highly innovative and collaborative drug discovery projects. LDC tries to transform these innovative early-stage projects into attractive licensing opportunities. It has built up an excellent track record in partnering projects to industrial partners, like Bayer AG, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck KGaA, Qurient etc. [more]

tba [more]

It has become clear that brain immunity encompasses the resident myeloid cells, the microglia, and well as circulating adaptive and innate immune cells, that are located in special compartments at the brain's borders, including the meninges and the choroid plexus. These circulating immune cells support brain repair and functional plasticity. Specifically, we found that the epithelial layer that forms the blood-CSF-barrier, the choroid plexus epithelium (CP), serves as a gate regulating leukocyte entry to the CNS; its activity is controlled by its cytokine milieu, and specifically IFN-γ. In analyzing how the activity of this interface determines the fate of the brain, we discovered by immunogenomics and immunohistochemistry that in aging and in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mouse models, this interface is suppressed with respect to its ability to allow communication between the brain and the circulating leukocytes. [more]

The neuropeptides oxytocin (OXT) and neuropeptide S (NPS) have gained substantial interest as important modulators of socio-emotional behaviours. As such, both OXT and NPS exert anxiolytic effects also in rats selectively bred for high (HAB) versus low (LAB) anxiety-related behaviour, and were found to reverse non-social fear in models of cued fear-conditioning. Moreover, both neuropeptides are major players in the promotion of social interactions. For example, I will present data demonstrating that naturally occurring social preference behaviour is highly OXT-dependent both in laboratory rats and mice, and that social defeat-induced avoidance of conspecifics is reversed by each of these neuropeptides^1,2. [more]

Projects available will be presented to invited candidates by the IMPRS-TP faculty members during the interview week. [more]

Precision medicine aims to reduce the burden of mental disorders by identifying disease markers based on neural processes that predict psychopathology and enable stratification for targeted interventions. [more]

tba [more]

Adrenal corticosteroid hormones are potent modulators of the brain via mineralo- and glucocorticoid receptors, MR and GR. MR and GR function in large measure as transcription factors. Not only do they mediate different effects even within the same neurons, these effects may also differ substantially between different (neuronal) cell types. Aberrant MR/GR signalling may be causal to the development of a range of psychopathologies. [more]

This talk considers formal or computational approaches to psychopathology. I will use schizophrenia to offer a case study of computational psychiatry. [more]

tba [more]

In our laboratory, we study the molecular mechanisms that regulate, control and execute developmental neuronal remodeling in Drosophila melanogaster. Remodeling refines neural circuits by a combination of degenerative processes, such as axon and synapse pruning, as well as regenerative processes, such as regrowth to form adult specific connections. Neuronal remodeling is essential for sculpting the mature nervous systems of both vertebrates and invertebrates during development. Despite its fundamental role in neurodevelopment and proposed contribution to various neuropsychiatric disorders, the mechanisms instructing remodeling are only partially known. [more]

We aim to understand neurogenesis when and how it works – during development and in the few niches of adult neurogenesis – in order to reinstall neurogenesis when needed after brain injury. [more]

Joshua Gordon will provide an overview of challenges and opportunities in mental health research. [more]

Regulation of gene expression via stably altered chromatin is a compelling area of study for highly heritable neuropsychiatric diseases, such as addiction (Walker, Cates, Heller, & Nestler, 2015). However, due to the promiscuous nature of chromatin-remodeling factors (Kennedy et al., 2013; Maze et al., 2011), previous studies have largely failed to distinguish between the mere presence and the functional relevance of drug-induced histone post-translational modifications (HPTMs). [more]

The complex behaviors underlying reward seeking and consumption are integral to organism survival. The hypothalamus and mesolimbic dopamine system are key mediators of these behaviors, yet regulation of appetitive and consummatory behaviors outside of these regions is poorly understood. The central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) has been implicated in feeding and reward, but the neurons and circuit mechanisms that positively regulate these behaviors have remained unclear until recently. We have defined the neuronal mechanisms by which CeA neurons promote food consumption. [more]

The ability to control automatic emotional actions constitutes a critical component of emotion regulation during socially threatening situations. For instance, under acute social threat, goal directed decision-making depends largely on the capacity to override automatic defensive actions such as freezing reactions or fight-or-flight actions. Distinct parts of the frontal cortex are implicated in regulating these defensive reactions. [more]

We are welcoming 24 candidates from 13 countries, flying in from as far as South Africa, Guatemala and China. [more]

Over the last two decades, neuroimaging has provided ample knowledge on the structure, function and connectivity of the human brain as well as the aberrations thereof in patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders. In this context, the long predominant paradigm has been to compare (mean) local volume or activity between groups, or to correlate these to behavioral phenotypes. Such approach, however, is intrinsically limited in terms of possible insight into inter-individual differences and application in clinical practice. Recently, the increasing availability of large cohort data and tools for multivariate statistical learning, allowing the prediction of individual cognitive or clinical phenotypes in new subjects, have started a revolution in imaging neuroscience. [more]

Evidence in both humans and animals points to dysregulated circuit function in depression, but the molecular mechanisms are unknown. Recent functional studies suggest that opposing alterations in prefrontal cortex and ventral hippocampus regulate resilience and susceptibility to chronic social defeat stress (CSDS), a highly validated mouse model of depression. [more]

Antidepressant drug action has typically been considered at the neurochemical, cellular and molecular level. However, it is unclear how these changes become translated into the psychological changes in symptoms seen during treatment in depression. [more]

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