CBBS Members

Prof. Volkmar Leßmann is the Director of the Institute of Physiology at the Medical Faculty of the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. His research focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity. Using combined electrophysiological and fluorescence microscopy techniques, his group investigates how neuromodulatory transmitters such as dopamine and neurotrophins like BDNF regulate synaptic transmission in neuronal circuits of the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex of mice, and how this affects learning in vivo. In collaboration with psychiatrists, neurologists, and sports scientists in Magdeburg and Jena, his team further examines the role of BDNF as a biomarker in patients with depression and dementia. Together with the group of Frank Ohl from the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology Magdeburg, his research deals with the optogenetically controlled BDNF regulation of cortico-hippocampal circuits involved in Alzheimer's disease and fear learning.

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