Max Planck Research Group Refojo: Molecular Neurobiology
Group leader
Contact
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry
Kraepelinstrasse 2
80804 Munich
Phone: +49-(0)89-30622-240
Fax: +49-(0)89-30622-610
E-mail: refojo[a]mpipsykl.mpg.de
Scientific profile
From a neurobiological perspective, psychiatric diseases are information processing disorders and, as such, critically influenced by the concerted function of different neurotransmitter circuits as well as by the plastic changes permanently occurring on dendrites and spines. Thus the major goals of the Molecular Neurobiology Group are based in two topics.
On the one hand, the study of peptidergic and neurotransmitter circuits involved in anxiety and depression and the discovery of new molecular targets for pharmacological intervention in mood disorders. Mouse genetic engineering for conditional mutagenesis, behavioral phenotyping, psychopharmacology, microarray and protein array screenings, culture and transfection of different cell lines and basic molecular biology techniques are used to achieve these goals.
On the other hand, we are deeply interested in the role of new candidate genes, which are associated to stress and anxiety phenotypes and that exert robust remodelling roles on the morphology of neurons during development. By using neuronal primary cell cultures, viral injections in vivo, and by means of the generation of new conditional KO mice we aspire to dissect the mechanism by which these molecules control different aspects of neuronal development like axonal and dendrite growth, spine maturation and synapse formation.
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