Merle Schennink

During my studies in Health and Life Sciences (BSc., 2022, VU) and Neurosciences (MSc., 2025, VU), I became interested in the neurobiological foundation of psychiatric disorders. During my internship in McNally’s lab (2025, UNSW, Sydney), where I focused on the role of endogenous opioid and dopamine systems during fear conditioning, I learned a variety of techniques, including rat surgeries, dual-color fiber photometry and immunohistochemistry. Most importantly, this internship confirmed my passion for behavioral and molecular neurosciences and paved the way for my current PhD position in the Memory Circuits team of Dr. Michel van den Oever.

During my PhD, I will investigate the effect of glucocorticoids on engram cells and their role in memory generalization. Specifically, I will 1) determine whether glucocorticoid levels alter the structural properties and proteome of synapses on hippocampal engram cells, 2) determine if intervention with glucocorticoid-evoked gene/protein expression changes attenuates generalized fear memory. In addition, I will collaborate in ongoing research on the effect of threat intensity on the involvement of cortical brain regions in recent and remote fear memory recall. To address these topics, I will utilize e-GRASP and other in vivo labeling techniques in combination with contextual fear conditioning, synapse isolation and sorting, proteomic analysis and engram-specific interventions.