Prof. Dr. Stefan Herlitze, Dr. Katharina Spoida, Hanna Böke, Linda Olbricht, Sandra Sü?

The neurotransmitter serotonin modulates our emotional behavior such as anxiety and aggression. Changes in the serotonin levels in the brain leads to anxiety and depression. Serotonin mediates its effect in the brain via 6 different groups of GPCRs, which activate different signaling cascades inside the cell. One of our goals is now to understand the importance of these signaling cascades for anxiety and aggression. In order to understand and control the signaling cascades of the serotonergic system in vivo in their target regions such as the cortex, the amygdala and the hypothalamus and to gain an understanding how these signals modulate the behavior of the animals we are using transgenic and virus approaches in combination with optogenetic techniques.

Katharina Spoida (left) and Sandra Süß have investigated how the absence of a specific receptor affects the ability to unlearn fear. (RUB News)