Two researchers at the Göttingen Campus have been awarded ERC Starting Grants by the European Research Council (ERC), a funding program for promising young scientists in Europe.

ERC Starting Grant: Dr. Oliver Barnstedt

Neuroscientist Dr Oliver Barnsted from the European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen (ENI-G) receives funding of around 1.5 million euros for his project “LearnMamBo: Neuronal dynamics of learning and memory in the mammillary body“.

The mammillary body is one of the first regions of the brain to be attributed a role in memory function. This small “brain nucleus” is important for episodic memory, which stores personal experiences and events, and is affected in dementia diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Korsakoff’s syndrome, a severe memory disorder. The mechanisms that lead to memory formation and loss in the mammillary body are still largely unclear. “Much of the memory research in the brain to date has focused on the hippocampus, a structure that plays a key role in retrieving and forming memories, while other involved and connected brain regions have been neglected – often due to technical difficulties,” says Barnstedt, head of the “Multiscale Circuit Analysis” working group at ENI-G, a collaboration between the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) and the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences, and a member of the Cluster of Excellence “Multiscale Bioimaging: From Molecular Machines to Networks of Excitable Cells” (MBExC).

“In our project, we use state-of-the-art imaging and physiological techniques to uncover and explain these mechanisms in the mammillary body,” says Barnstedt. “Our two main technologies are two-photon calcium imaging and optogenetics. The former allows us to observe hundreds of nerve cells in the mammillary body simultaneously as they form and retrieve memories over several days. Based on the activity of the nerve cells, we can map exactly which nerve cells store memories and track how they are used by the rest of the brain. The latter allows us to selectively activate or deactivate cell groups during the formation or retrieval of memories using light pulses, thereby influencing memory function. With their work, the researchers will contribute to elucidating the neural mechanisms of memory formation in the mammillary body and associated structures, thereby creating new therapeutic approaches for dementia.

In addition to Dr. Barnstedt, ecologist Dr. Anggi Hapsari from the University of Göttingen has received funding of around two million euros for her project “SaLtedPeat: Potential impact of sea level rise-related salinization on tropical coastal peatlands”. Both projects will run for five years.