FUNDAMENTAL research

• Interoception and the regulation of emotions and behavior
• Physiology of the insular cortex
• Brain-body interactions and gut brain axis in psychiatric and metabolic disorders
• Cortical glucose and metabolism sensing
• Central control of energy balance and feeding behavior
• Optical methods to study the brain

 translational research

• Role of the insular cortex and interoception in mood and anxiety disorders
• Involvement of the insula in fronto-temporal dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders
• Translational brain mapping across imaging modalities and animal species
• High-throughput human brain mapping
• Digital neuropathology and brain bank digitization
• Neuroimaging and peripheral biomarkers for psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders

methods

• Whole organ imaging – human tissue clearing - light-sheet microscopy - 2-photon microscopy
• High-throughput neurohistology
• Live cell imaging - freely moving imaging
• Optogenetics – chemogenetics
• Automated behavioral analysis
• Neuronal circuit mapping
• Genetic mouse models
• Transcriptomic analysis

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

• Anxiety - Depression
• Functional disorders
• Neurodegenerative diseases
• Eating disorders
• Obesity - Diabetes