Studying synapses: how do our neurons communicate?

 

Neurons in the brain communicate via points of contacts called “synapses”. Information is transferred from the “pre”-synaptic neuron, through the synapse, to the “post”-synaptic neuron. Mechanisms of synaptic transmission provide the building blocks underlying strength, efficacy, reliability and timing for neuronal communication across the brain. My research uses molecular, physiological and anatomical approaches to study biophysical neuronal properties and synapses from different perspectives, to get a full grasp of how the work.

I am driven by my scientific curiosity and how the rapid neuronal changes which occur during neuronal communication can have such an impact and brain function. While research on a daily-basis can be slow and requires a lot of resilience, studying the brain means also to understand ourselves better. How we learn, how we remember, how we see, how we hear, how we feel, how we sleep, how we stay awake… are things about ourselves that are fascinating to try to understand!

 

From my PhD supervisor: [Nothing is “weird”, but rather it’s “interesting”] About something new we observe. If we go about things from that perspective, we will always learn something. Not just in science, but for anything in life.
From my postdoc supervisor: [Ein Experiment ist kein Experiment] Be thorough and quantitative, to be certain that what we observe is the truth.