Dementia Science

Our goal is to understand the specific molecular, cellular and network adaptations that occur in the brain in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s diseasse, and to test how these adaptations can be used for early disease diagnosis and intervention.

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Principal Investigators

Ronald van Kesteren
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Animal Models of Psychiatric Disease

The focus of my team is on cognition and how it is affected by neuropsychiatric ailments, such as depression. We study maladaptation of synapses and circuitry brought about by unique molecular signatures in hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

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Principal Investigators

Sabine Spijker
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Glial Regulated Neuronal Plasticity

Our research aims to discover new glial-based mechanisms of information processing in the brain in health and disease, with a focus on the role of astrocytes in the regulation of myelin and synaptic plasticity.

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Principal Investigators

Mark Verheijen
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Memory Circuits

Our goal is to gain mechanistic insight into the neural circuitry, cells and molecules that support persistent memories of negative and positive experiences.

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Principal Investigators

Michel van den Oever
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Molecular Engrams

The main goal of my research team is to identify the bio-molecular framework on which aversive associative memories are built and maintained throughout their lifetime.

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Principal Investigators

Priyanka Rao-Ruiz
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Synapse Gene Mapping

Together with the SynGO consortium, we are helping to create an expert-curated knowledge database with information about genes expressed in the synapse, their involvement in biological processes and interaction partners. We aim to add information to the database from our own high-throughput molecular experiments. The low amount of false positives will enable us to perform meaningful and reliable pathway analyses that can aid research into synaptopathies such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. In addition, my team also focuses on innovative ways to maintain the quality of education with a growing student population.

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Other leadership

Loek van der Kallen
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Addiction

My aim is to unravel the neurobiological mechanisms underlying drug addiction with a particular focus on relapse mechanisms related to alcohol and nicotine. These studies have a strong multidisciplinary character and include behavioural analysis, proteomics, neurophysiology and opto- and chemogenetic approaches.

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Other leadership

Taco de Vries
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Neuroproteomics

My Neuroproteomics team aims to (1) describe the protein complex nano-machinery that underlies synapse function and plasticity, and (2) reveal the alteration of synapse/tissue proteomes in cases of neuro-degenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. Mass spectrometry based quantitative proteomics analysis is the leading technology behind these studies.

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Other leadership

Ka Wan Li
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