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Research Overview

The main goal of the Department of Neurophysiology is to study mechanisms involved in neuronal plasticity as the main cellular functional substrate for learning and memory formation. The department has pioneered in investigating processes underlying the prolonged maintenance of long-term potentiation (LTP), currently the only physiological mechanism besides long-term depression, thought to underlie processes such as memory formation and learning. Recently, we have shown new properties of late-LTP named 'synaptic tagging' and 'late heterosynaptic reinforcement', processes which describe the associative interaction of different synaptic inputs to a single neuron required for the formation of a memory trace within small neuronal networks. We have continued and expanded our work to study these processes using methods from the molecular to the behavioral level. Specific emphasis is placed on the further cell-physiological characterisation of processes underlying the induction and prolonged maintenance of long-term potentiation (LTP) including synaptic tagging and reinforcement of early-LTP.

Annual Report:

• 04/05 Department Neurophysiology [PDF 0.6 MB]
• 02/03 Department Neurophysiology [PDF 0.6 MB]