NCCR-Synapsy

The Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

2016 Koetser Award to Christian Lüscher

Christian Lüscher Koetser prize 2016

The Betty and David Koetser Foundation for research on the brain rewards this year Christian Lüscher, Professor at the Department of fundamental neurosciences of the Faculty of Medicine at UNIGE (his group web page). Professor Lüscher, a specialist of neural Read more…


A novel pathway between stress and cognition

sress imagery

A team of neuroscientists from EPFL, MIT and Stanford uncovered a new stress-related mechanism involved in memory deterioration. In ever faster moving societies, an increasing number of people is becoming affected by the short- and long-term consequences of chronic stress. Read more…


Adapting optogenetics to reverse cocaine behavior

optogenetics

Borrowing ideas from optogenetics, which uses light to control neurons, Christian Lüscher and colleagues have developed a combination therapy to treat cocaine-induced behaviors in mice. Recent research has shown that it may be possible to use optogenetics to reverse cocaine-related Read more…


Discovery of a neuronal population that filters sensory information

sensory-olfactory

In the center:”Panache shaped” neurons population sent by olfactory sensory cells. Our five senses collect data for complex perceptual systems in the brain allowing us to make sense of the world around us. The stimuli entering the brain in the Read more…