Eckart Gundelfinger

Director of the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology Magdeburg and Head of the Department of Neurochemistry and Molecular Biology

The central goal of our research is to appreciate molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuronal – in particular synaptic – plasticity in health and disease. We study i) chemical brain synapses and the dynamics of the synaptic proteome during memory formation, ii) the function of the perisynaptic extracellular matrix in physiological and pathological synaptic plasticity and iii) the synapto-genetics of the Drosophila larval neuromuscular junction (NMJ). In this context, the role of members of the neuroplastin-basigin subfamily of Iglike cell adhesion molecules in cellular signaling and Ca2+ homeostasis in the nervous and immune systems as well as at the fly NMJ attracted major interest. Moreover, synapto nuclear communication processes and the role of presynaptic mechanisms in learning and memory are being investigated.

Keywords: synapse – synaptic plasticity – neuropathomechanisms – learning and memory – synaptoproteomics

Location: LIN

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