News:
2020-10-11
Another Scientific Reports manuscript accepted
It always feels good when long-standing collaborations come to a successful end. In this case it was one with Werner Kilb from Heiko Luhmann's group in Mainz on "NKCC-1 mediated Cl- uptake in immature CA3 pyramidal neurons is sufficient to compensate phasic GABAergic inputs". This manuscript has just been accepted at Scientific Reports.Congratulations!
2020-09-24
POM again
A couple of years after Alvar's first paper made it first as the Paper of the Month (POM) and finally even as the Paper of the Year in 2016, I now have the pleasure to announce that Xiaojuan's recent publication also made it POM in February 2020. This is well deserved since she achieved to combine a high level of insightful data on GIN cells with a beautiful illustration of their microscopic and ultrastructural features. Congratulations!https://anatomische-gesellschaft.de/?post=gewinner-der-paper-of-the-month-in-2020
2020-08-26
All good things have to come to an end
After working for approximately 7 years at the Institute for Neuroanatomy as an independent junior research group leader, Tran Tuoc has found a permanent position at the University of Bochum (Dept. of Human Genetics). With him, also Linh and Godwin have moved, thus leaving Eman, Pauline and Xiaoyi here, in order to finish their projects. Thus our interactions will remain productive for the next couple of years.Best of luck at your new scientific home, Tran et al :-)
2020-08-26
Why is science always happening in waves?
After sailing for quite some time in a wave trough, it seems that the lab has now reached the crown of another wave of publications.It felt totally awesome to see the Phyiological Reviews paper being published online ahead of print. It was also heart lifting to see the online version of a community effort on cell type classification being posted on the Nature Neuroscience server.
Furthermore, tonight the good news reached us that Georg's second PhD project had been accepted by Cerebral Cortex, after having reached quite some views on the preprint server. If you are curious, here is the link to BioRxiv.
2020-08-24
Review manuscript published ahead of print
There are easier and there are harder achievements. This was a very hard one due to many reasons. But as it is probably often the case after deliveries, soon the pain if forgotten and the joy remains. Also in the case of this Physiological Reviews paper, which was finally accepted recently and now is available online ahead of print. Together with Carl Petersen, we covered 50 years of barrel cortex research on whisker-based sensory perception and the underlying cell types and circuits. Let's hope that the community likes this kind of encyclopedic ressource.Please check out:
2020-06-05
Good news from Scientific Reports
Recently, a beautiful collaborative paper on the characterization of optogenetic viral vectors in the monkey was accepted for publication in SREP!In this study, entitled Histological assessment of
optogenetic tools to study the fronto-visual and fronto-parietal cortical network
in the rhesus macaque an in-depth characterization of AAV2/5-CaMKIIα-eNpHR3.0-mCherry, -ChR2-eYFP,
-C1V1-mCherry is presented. Well done, Michal and Janina.
2020-06-03
BARRELS XXXIII goes virtual
2020-05-12
Update on: Celebrate 50 years of barrel cortex research with us
Dear Barrels afficionados,due to the Corona crisis and the associated travel regulations, we have decided to postpone the meeting to next year. Please find the new date and according information here:
2020-04-21
Corona takes its toll on conferences
Recently, some conference organizers took action and did the expectable: they either shifted their conference in to the next year (e.g. Lausanne - 50 years of barrel cortex) or venture the virtual realm (FENS Forum "in Glasgow"). Also the Barrels 33 meeting, supposed to be scheduled right before the Neuroscience 2020 conference in Baltimore, will happen in the digital world, in a format still to be designed, since a time zone of 10 hours needs to be respected.What a pity! So many missed fruitful and pleasant personal interactions.
2020-04-08
Corona and science
The news blog was sparse in recent times. Not that there had been nothing happening, it was just the rush to keep up with the latest Corona developments (and their consequences for work) that kept us busy.There is good news and bad news (as always ;-). The good news is that an opinion paper on cell types and their putative nomenclature was accepted at Nature Neuroscience. This brings a fruitful conference (The Brain Conferences - The necessity of cell types for brain function, Copenhagen October 2018) to an even more rewarding end.
The bad news is that the FENS forum in Glasgow will be held as a virtual conference. This is bad because it is the human touch that makes conferences of this kind special. But of course, not all the conferences of the year 2020 can be shifted into the future, conference schedules are already tight throughout the year.
Take care and stay healthy!
2020-03-02
Celebrate 50 years of barrel cortex research with us
In the biannual series of "European Barrel Conferences", this year, Carl Petersen will host a meeting termed "50 years of Barrel Cortex" in Lausanne, lasting from 08.-10.07.2020. Please check out and register at
2020-01-05
First paper of the new year published
Although the new year is still young, I am happy to announce that there is a first paper out. It is about how to measure whisker movements and locomotion, containing the reeler mouse as one of several mouse models examined. Enjoy!
2019-12-14
Second helping
... and there was a second table at the Kartoffelhaus, unfortunately it was too long to get everybody on the picture.
2019-12-14
Oh, is it already Christmas again?
Another message that is not twittered out to the world: we already had our Christmas party! Well, already is not the right expression since Christmas seems to be just around the corner - and we also brought the first tree ever into our building. As you can see, we had a nice dinner in a cosy restaurant and played some "relaxing" games (no drinking ones ;-) that Mirko prepared for us. It was a pleasant end for a pleasant year.
2019-12-13
This time it is eLIFE
Hooray, together with the group of Carl Petersen at the EPFL, Michael, Pavel and me could contribute to a study named "Pathway-, layer-and cell-type-specific thalamic input to mouse barrel cortex". As the title says, it is a pretty comprehensive optogenetic mapping of inputs from the VPM and POm on all kinds of target cells in the barrel cortex.Watch out for it getting "printed"!
2019-12-10
More doctors for the world
In the big rush of this year, 3 new "doctors" have been delivered to the world by us.These are- Godwin Sokpor "Cortical patterning and neuronal migration are under the guide of BAF complex functionality"
- Michael Feyerabend "Thalamocortical innervation of GABAergic interneurons in mouse primary somatosensory vibrissal cortex"
- Christina Bachmann "Loss of BAF 155 impairs neurogenesis in the developing olfactory system of mice"
A BIG thank you for all your efforts to make this a success and of course to everbody else who helped on the way!
2019-11-26
Another manuscript accepted
I am happy to announce that another manuscript has been accepted in late 2019!It is a collaboration with Robyn Grant that stems from her times being a postdoc in Tony Prescotts lab. Here, we present a first description of quantitative parameters of reeler mice whisking. In short: they are much more normal than anything else! Watch out for the publication to get printed.
2019-11-05
Cerebral Cortex paper now Online
In a cooperation with Bianca Brunne and the late Michael Frotscher, we contributed some data on cortical layering in mice, which got their reelin gene knocked-out specifically in GABAergic neurons. This was achieved by corssing a floxed reelin mouse with a Dlx 5/6 cre-driver line. The results show suprsingly mild effects, mainly on dentate gyrus features.If you want to learn more, it's open access:
2019-10-23
Cool conference at a cool place
So long to prepare, so quickly being over: Barrels XXXII is already history. A great one, though! Not only the session with Julien, Chinfei, Dan and Gavin was very insightful. Also the social behavior (singing mice, helping, rats, gambling monkeys and incest blocking brain areas) and the cerebellum talks were simply enlightening. The local organizing committee did a great job (thanks to Gordon), too. We will come back!
2019-10-15
We are heading for Barrels 32
This week, Georg, Michael and Julien will visit and contribute to the 32nd Barrels Meeting, the longest running satellite symposium of the SfN-Neuroscience meetings. It is going to be a VERY exciting happening!BARRELS XXXII
The 32nd
Annual Barrels Society Meeting
Thursday & Friday
October 17 & 18,
Northwestern University,
Chicago Campus
Feinberg
School of Medicine
Robert H.
Lurie Medical Research Center
303 E Superior St, Chicago, IL 60611
Thursday
October 17, 2019
“Readjusting cortical circuits during development”
Chinfei Chen, Harvard University
"Wiring and rewiring Information lines in sensory thalamus"
Dan Feldman,
University California Berkeley
"Somatosensory cortex as a model for understanding circuit deficits in
autism"
Julien Guy,Georg-August Universitaet Göttingen
"Circuit imbalances and sensory processing in a
model cortex without layers"
Gavin
Rumbaugh, Scripps Research Institute
"Top-down control of tactile functions by the autism risk gene
syngap1"
Plenary Lecture
Hongkui Zeng,Allen Institute
for Brain Science
"Integrated
cell type classification in the mouse cortex"
Friday October 18, 2019
“Neocortical activity and the organization of social behaviors”
Michael Long,New York
University
"Neurobiology
of Vocal Interactions"
Peggy
Mason,
University of Chicago
"The
neurobiology of helping: Lessons from Order Rodentia"
Keren Haroush,
Stanford University
"Social
representations in the primate brain"
Michael
Brecht, HumboldtUniversität Berlin
"Blood
is thicker than water"
“Cerebellar circuits in behavior”
Richard Warren, Columbia University
"Whisker-Guided sensorimotor transformations on the move"
Paul Chadderton,
University of Bristol
"Organisation of whisking-related signals at the input and output layers
of cerebellar cortex"
Clement Lena,
Ecole Normal Superior
"Interactions of the cerebellum with whisker sensorimotor cortices"
2019-09-25
Cell Reports paper published
We have been waiting for this moment for a long time! After starting with rabies tracing in 2013 and finding out later that most viral vectors have a substantial amount of TVA leak expression, we are very pround that we were able to control this problem to the best possible extent. We were also lucky that in the meantime intersectional viral vectors were introduced so that we could clean up the PV cell population from the 10 % of pyramidal cells in L5 that do express PV. Congratulation and thanks to Georg for not giving up!
2019-09-19
Wüzburg meeting of the Anatomische Gesellschaft
The final program of the 114th Annual Meeting of the Anatomische Gesellschaft (25.-27.09.2019) is published and we are looking very much forward to contributing 2 talks on GABAergic neurons in the reeler cortex. Julien and Georg will present their latest results on sensory processing and connectivity of mainly VIP neurons in the mutant and in wild type controls.
2019-08-26
Wiley is superfast!
In a record time, our accepted paper was produced by Wiley and is already Open online!The nice effect of the DEAL with Wiley is that the open access fees were paid via this agreement. Let's hope that there will be a solution with Elsevier soon.
If you like nice EM, please check out:
2019-07-30
Fantastic: another manuscript accepted!
What a great day: Georg's manuscript at Cell Reports has been accepted after a long and extensive revision. Whatever, the study got even better and the reviewers were very pleased! I am really proud that after all the troubles we had to face with the method, we could finally come up with this:Mapping the brain-wide afferent inputs of parvalbumin-expressing GABAergic neurons in barrel cortex reveals local and long-range circuit motifs
Georg Hafner 1, Mirko Witte1, Julien Guy 1, Nidhi Subhashini1, Edward Callaway2, Karl Deisseroth3, Lief Fenno3, Charu Ramakrishnan3, Jochen F. Staiger1
2019-07-30
Manuscript finally accepted
We are very happy to announce that the Journal of Comparative Neurology has accepted a manuscript, which was mainly prepared by Xiaojuan and thus can be regarded as a "farewell present" by her! It is entitledCharacterizing the
morphology of somatostatin-expressing interneurons and their synaptic
innervation pattern in the barrel cortex of the GIN mouse
Xiaojuan Zhou1, Ima Mansori1, Tatjana Fischer1,
Mirko Witte1, Jochen F. Staiger1
In this paper we describe the synaptology of the GIN cells, which are by and large Martinotti cells and innervate small, non-GABAergic dendrites.
2019-07-17
Convocation of the Glorious Three
On a very special day for our lab, 3 PhD students at once were going through the sequence of convocation ceremony, kissing Gänseliesel and doing some heavy partying. No doubt, all three of them certainly deserved the special attendance that they got. Congratulations to Huong, Kamila and Georg and many thanks to the people who worked hard to make this day a success!
2019-07-08
Business trip 2019: episode II
When it was all sunshine and blue skies, the wild bunch, consisting of 15 very young, young, and not so young anymore scientists (excluding the meritful photographer) set out to conquer the Diemel. We succeeded!!
2019-06-24
Cerebral Cortex paper now Online
Here we go! An exciting piece of science is finally available fully open. Please check out at
2019-06-24
Business trip 2019: wet from above and wet from below
On Wednesday, 19th of June, we went out for our yearly trip to a location well appreciated by us: the Hofgut Stammen. After a long canoe trip on the Diemel with lots of fun above and below the water, we had farmers games (including milking cows), barbecue and beach volleyball and a "little" thunderstorm. Never mind, in our ninth year, we had nine times the best wheather you can wish for.
2019-04-26
Manuscript finally accepted
What a struggle! After 3 rounds of review and satisfying probably 6 different reviewers, we finally made it again into Cerebral Cortex.
Neuromodulation leads to a burst-tonic switch in a
subset of VIP neurons in mouse primary somatosensory (barrel) cortex
the work by Alvar, Martin and Mirko that created so much excitement during the last 2 years, has finally a home to be proud of.
Congratulations for an excellent piece of work!
2019-04-25
New publication
After having had 5 manuscripts in revision, with 3 more being reviewed, surely this second accepted paper of the year will not be the last one. Funnily, the manuscript just accepted was the last one submitted. Let's hope that the scientific community will consider it small but beautiful (helpful), Thanks to Zsuzsa, Csaba and Mirko for keeping the faith!
2019-03-26
Göttingen meeting of the German Neuroscience Society
As every other year, the "Neurowissenschaftliche Gesellschaft" held its Göttingen meeting in Göttingen - as you might have already guessed. This time in its 13th occasion, great neuroscience from all over the world was sponsored, with remarkable plenary lectures on soccer/football, consciousness, smart birds, stunning bats and time machines. Somewhat out of season for us, we only had a very interesting poster on epigenetic regulation of forebrain oligodendrocyte development presented by Eman Abbas.
2018-12-12
Christmas party 2018-second helping
Enjoy!
2018-12-12
Christmas party 2018
As our ninth year in Göttingen comes to an end, several pleasant traditions have evolved, one of these being our Christmas party. This year we warmed up at the Bowling center that usually sees relaxed Neuroanatomy members that play for fun in the first place. Everybody scored! Afterwards, of course, everybody was hungry, so the carnivor orgy at the restaurant "Argentina Steakhouse" came in handy. Keep your spirits up, guys!
2018-11-28
A new doctor has been born
After a quite prolonged "pregnancy" and some hard episodes during "delivery", a new doctor (med. dent.) has been send into the world of wisdom. May the exciting memories on barrel cortex and somatostatin neurons (as well as on all team members and especially her invaluable supervisor Mirko Witte) outlast all the dull cavity filling that lies ahead now!Congratulations and all the best for Tatjana!
2018-11-16
GoeVIP 18 goes to Nguyen et al.
The latest selection of an outstanding paper in basic science authored by members of the UMG sponsored a recent publication of the Institute for Neuroanatomy, originating from Tran Tuoc's research group. It is entitled "Epigenetic Regulation by BAF Complexes Limits Neural Stem Cell Proliferation by Suppressing Wnt Signaling in Late Embryonic Development" and appeared in Stem Cell Reports. Cobgratulations to everybody involved in this project!http://www.med.uni-goettingen.de/de/media/GoeVIP_18_Tran_Tuoc.pdf
2018-11-08
Barrels 31 and Neuroscience 2018 was surely worth the trip
As every year, a small and a big world neuroscience conference took place right after each other. This Year Barrels 31 was held at the UC Riverside. Some 90 participants enjoyed science, lively discussions, lots of good food and the Californian sun. And not to forget Georg's talk! After re-locating to San Diego, some 28.000 neuroscientist enjoyed (despite all the bad overprized food) a conference that always is offering everything you want to hear. Georg's poster was a real success (it attracted some 80-100 people I guess) and also our Minisymposium on Cortical cell type classification was unanimously praised by the audience - and yes, it was excellent science that was delivered by the 6 speakers. Let's do it again at Uncle Sam next year in Chicago.
2018-10-12
Petilla comes to Copenhagen
What is a cell type? How to classify them? How to name them? Can we access their function?If you are interested in these kinds of basic questions, then Copenhagen was the place to be during the last few days. Ed Lein and Rafa Yuste organized a terrific Brain Conference at the beautiful Moltke Palais, which hosted some 100 people of many different fields, all eager to work towards answering the above questions. Sparked by the fanstastic progress of single cell transcriptomics, the question that was in Petilla "Can we classify cortical neurons" has now turned into "How can we reasonably do it". The panel discussion showed the many issues still to be solved but in my opinion, this is just a matter of time.
2018-09-30
113th meeting of the Anatomical Society in Rostock
This is Marko, not Mirko!Whereas Mirko gave an instructive presentation on transgenic animal research, Marko was one of the stars on the same day, when we had a boat trip to Guido Dehnhard's research station, close to Warnemünde. Usually Marko helps the scientists to unravel how the vibrissae help to find fish or to orient in unsteady envrionments. But this day Marko was simply spoiled with lots of fish to let some 100 anatomists pad him.
Altogether, it was an interesting and well-organized meeting and we can conclude that Anatomy is doing well in Germany and beyond.
2018-08-23
Business trip 2018
OOPS, we did it again!Yesterday 16 people crazy for canoeing and other fun stuff drove to Northeim. First we had a very civilized trip on the Rhume (and the winner was ...;-), then we cooled us down with lot's of ice cream in the lovely timber-framed city center (and the winner was .... ;;-), followed by a minigolf competition (where of course the winner was ..... ;;;-). For all of us who did not have enough (food), the restaurant at the Burg Plesse provided us with big plates and plenty of drinks (with no competition :-(
Thanks to all organizers - and, of course, we will do it again :-)
2018-07-18
New Lab Opening Party
After a thorough renovation, our nicest lab was re-opened with a barbecue party. This was also a great opportunity to congratulate our birthday children that were supplied with phenomenal cake from our fantastic cake baking team. Thanks to everybody involved!
2018-06-25
EMBO meeting on Interneurons
Every 3 years a group of interneuron lovers meets on the beautiful island of Mallorca to communicate the progress achieved on this exciting class of neurons. Their development, their circuit features and their functions all become more and more clear. This became obvious in the keynote lecture on GABAergic projection neurons but also in lectures on transcriptomic cell types (we are at 14 types of VIP neurons!) and on neuropeptide-mediated plasticity. Georg's poster on intersectional Rabies tracing of parvalbumin neurons was well received, too.Thanks are due to Oscar Marin and the other organizers for bringing exciting science to a marvelous place.
2018-05-29
Barrels and beyond 2018 delivers excellent science to Göttingen
On May 24th and 25th, the conference "Barrels and beyond 2018" attracted some 90 participants to the MPI for Experimental Medicine. This conference was sponsored by the CRC 889 (Cellular mechanisms of sensory processing), CNMPB and GGNB, and also followed the tradition of meetings organized by the research unit BaCoFun. All talks were simply great, with the plenary lectures really being outstanding. Vivid discussions and plenty of food (and drinks) rounded up this remarkable meeting. A big thanks to all involved helping hands! Let's hope to continue this series in 2 years in Amsterdam, Zürich or Lausanne and in 4 years again in Göttingen.
2018-04-30
Successful thesis defense
With her excellent thesis defense and the wonderful convocation ceremony, the smoothing and polishing of another scientific gem was finally accomplished. The Spanish bull head certainly captures well some of the virtues that were necessary on the way. Thanks are due to Robin, Mirko and Kamila, as well as the many others that helped making this happening.
2018-04-03
Triple achieved!
This is no April's joke, After 2 extensive reviews on epigenetic mechanisms of neural development, Tran Tuoc and his group has just gotten provisionally accepted a manuscript in Stem Cell Reports. Here they report on BAF interaction with Wnt signaling in late embryonic development of cerebal cortex. Stay tuned for the publication list update!
2018-03-20
New Publication
The first publication in 2018 is out!Thanks to meticulous reading and writing by Godwin and Eman, scientists can now access basically everything that is known about transcriptional and epigenetic control of mammalian olfactory epithelium development.
Congratulations!
2018-02-15
Update on Conferences
Please note that there is a final program for the Barrels and Beyond conference now available. Please checkIt has a terrific speaker list and will be certainly worth participating in. Registration deadline is 01.03.2018.
Also the EMBO workshop on Interneurons has announced its speakers list. Please check
Finally, it is worth mentioning that this years Barrels meeting (31!) will take place at UC Riverside, just preceding the SfN meeting in San Diego. There a minisymposium will be organized by Stacy Sorensen and Jochen Staiger on cortical cell type classification featuring (amongst others) Marcel Oberländer, Javier DeFelipe and Bernardo Rudy.
See you there!
2018-01-31
Successful thesis defense
On January 17th, Jürgen Delchmann successfully defended his MD thesis entitled "Elektrophysiologische Charakterisierung GABA-Rezeptor vermittelter Inhibition an Martinotti-Zellen im somatosensorischen Kortex". Directly supervised by Mirko Witte, he achieved important insights about inhibitory modulation of Martinotti cells by postsynaptic GABA-A- and presynaptic GABA-B-receptors.Congratulations, Jürgen - and many thanks to everybody who contributed to the celebration!
2018-01-18
Christiaan P. J. de Kock, a* Heiko J. Luhmann b* and Miguel Maravall c*aVU Amsterdam, Integrative Neurophysiology, De Boelelaan 1085, Amsterdam, The Netherlandsb Univ Med Center, Institute of Physiology, Duesbergweg 6, Mainz, Germanyc University of Sussex, School of Life Sciences, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QG, UK
Barrel Cortex Function - Special Issue in NEUROSCIENCE
Please check out this very comprehensive issue!Barrel Cortex Function Special Issue Editorial
Sensorimotor circuits allow the coordination of sensoryinformation and motor behavior and are pivotal tosurvival in challenging and dynamic environments. Toorchestrate a broad spectrum of possible outcomes,sensorimotor circuits consist of intricate networks ofmany different sensory, motor and associative(sub)cortical regions and include complicated wiringschemes and extensive flow charts. Understanding theorganizational principles of the underlying brain circuitryfrom synapses to cell types and from microcircuits tocomplex networks and behavior would be a majorachievement.The primary somatosensory (or: barrel) cortex ofrodents is widely used for studying molecular, cellularand circuit mechanisms underlying sensory-guidedbehavior. This system encodes tactile stimuli acquiredby the large facial whiskers located on the snout of theanimals. The conscious perception of tactile stimuli isalso highly relevant in the daily life of humans whenperforming fine-grained motor behavior, objectrecognition or social interactions, although we mainlyuse receptors on the finger tips. Especially for therehabilitation of stroke or amputees, the manifoldaspects of somatosensory transduction and processinghave to be better understood to translate them intobetter therapy.In 2016, the 3rd in a series of bi-annual meetings onsensory cortical circuits – with an emphasis on thebarrel cortex – was organized by Fritjof Helmchen,Jochen Staiger, Heiko Luhmann and Christiaan de Kockin Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) and brought togetherexperts on cortical circuitry, behavior and related topics.This meeting series was prompted by a successfulinternational collaborative consortium, Research Unit1341 on Barrel Cortex Function (BA-CO-FUN), begun in2010 and supported by the German and Swiss nationalresearch science foundations (DFG-SNF). Amsterdam2016 followed meetings in 2012 (Barcelona FENSsatellite) and 2014 (Go¨ ttingen), was attended by over160 participants, and featured sessions on‘‘Development”, ‘‘Inhibition”, ‘‘Linking Circuits toBehavior” and ‘‘Active Somatosensation”. Initialdiscussions on this special issue in NEUROSCIENCEemerged during the Amsterdam 2016 meeting, fueledby inspiring presentations from both senior and juniorscientists. It was felt that the time was ripe for a widerangingreview of the field, along thematic lines similarto those represented at the meeting. Contributions tothis special issue feature several speakers from themeeting, as well as the work of experts not directlyrelated to the BA-CO-FUN meetings or consortium.In short, we bring together a series of manuscripts ontopics that continue to be at the center of interest of theconsortium and associated meetings: the first section(‘‘Barrel Cortex Function”) features work from Stu¨ ttgenand Schwarz (2018), Fox (2018), Argaman and Golomb(2018), Kwon et al. (2018), Helmchen et al. (2018), Baleand Maravall (2018), and Estebanez et al. (2018) on organizationalprinciples of (predominantly) barrel cortex. The second section (‘‘Sensory Periphery”) features manuscriptsfrom Campagner et al. (2018) and Takatoh et al.(2018) on the sensory organ of the somatosensory system:the whiskers and sensory afferents. The third section(‘‘Cortical Inhibition”) is on the structure and function ofinhibitory components of barrel circuits with contributionsfrom Hu and Vervaeke (2018), and Feldmeyer et al.(2018) The fourth section is dedicated to ‘‘Linking Circuitsto Behavior” with manuscripts from McElvain et al. (2018),Guest et al. (2018), Higashikubo and Moore (2018),Auffret et al. (2018), Sabri and Arabzadeh (2018),Schäfer and Hoebeek (2018), and Mohan et al. (2018).The special issue concludes with a section on changesobserved in sensory circuits during development or as aresult of neuronal activity (‘‘Development & Plasticity”)with contributions from Martini et al. (2018), Luhmannand Khazipov (2018), Jamann et al. (2018), and Papaleand Hooks (2018).
2017-12-17
Christmas Celebration 2017
On an awfully rainy Wednesday the Institute went to the restaurant "Lockemann" in Herberhausen, unfortunately by car and bus, instead of hiking there. Well, the trip was worth it. Excellent German (!) cuisine and good company, together made up a very pleasant evening. One more week to go until a Merry Christmas.
2017-11-17
Neuroscience 2017
The big meeting is over. It was a kind of trance. 30000 people, 13000 posters and innumerable lectures. The future of neuroscience happens, everyday, somewhere in world - most often in the US. HBP pushed them. They show us how to do it. BRAIN is now also B.I.C.C.C.Well, it is fun to be a German neuroscientist/neuroanatomist anyway. Especially when your (Alvar's) poster is so well received. VIP neurons in any form and at any level of detail, people like it.
2017-11-13
Barrels 30 in Baltimore was a big success
On November 8th and 9th roughly 110 scientists and barrel afficionados met at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to report on recent findings in structure and function of the whisker-to-barrel (and beyond) system. In the first session chaired by Jochen Staiger, Alvar Prönneke gave an excellent talk on his current state of understanding of VIP interneurons. Also Xiaolong Jiang, Hillel Adesnik and Bernardo Rudy had excellent contributions to this session. We also honored Tom Woolsey for the discovery of the Barrel cortex and starting (with Dan Siimons) this meeting, which goes on now since 30 years!
2017-09-15
New Publication
It is the final reward for Xiaojuan after a long struggle to comprehensively survey synapses formed by VIP-expressing GABAergic boutons through a combination of pre-embedding YFP-staining and post-embedding GABA-immunogold labeling. Much to our own surprise at most some 37% of a subcellular target structure is formed by GABAergic neurons, thus, as a population the VIP cells can not be interneuron-specific interneurons. Please check out Cerebral Cortex for
2017-09-05
Business trip 2017 - reprise
It is more about the picture than anything else ... . 17 scientists from 9 different countries standing in front of the Witzenhausen green house to see coffee, cocoa, papaya, stevia, banana, and and and. Not to forget calabasses. That really worked for us.
2017-09-03
Memorial symposium for Michael Frotscher
Some 100 friends and colleagues gathered on Friday, September, 1st, in Hamburg to hold a memorial symposium for Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Frotscher, who suddenly died in May this year. What has been planned to be a symposium on the occasion of his 70th birthday sadly had to be renamed but nevertheless took place to show the appreciation and to express the gratitude of many former colleagues, friends and co-workers to this exceptional scientist.
2017-08-25
Business trip 2017
No joke - our business trip this year led us to the small but very beautiful city "Witzenhausen" being located in North-Hesse. It held a lot of pleasant surprises for us. A green house of the University of Kassel with lots of exciting plants. A microbrewery with (basically) unlimited lager to test. A very relaxed Café (Ringelnatz), with a pleasant athmosphere. For the brave ones, a jump into the green lake and some home-made tarte flambée rounded up a perfect day.Thanks are due to the organizers for doing a great job!
2017-08-07
Review paper published
Epigenetics is a field of ever increasing importance, not only for neural development but also for the understanding of many different diseases. Probably that's why the paper by Sokpor et al. in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience has already been viewed more than 500 times in the first few days.Congratulations!
2017-08-02
Manuscript accepted at Cerebral Cortex
Cerebral Cortex, which seems to have become our "home journal", has just accepted a manuscript with Xiaojuan Zhou as first author. It is entitled Subcellular targeting of VIP boutons in mouse barrel cortex is layer-dependent and not restricted to interneuronsCongratulations to everybody involved!
2017-07-20
Paper published
A fruitful collaboration has come to a fruitful end. The paper on the regulation of connectivity of OLM cells in the hippocampus by TRPV1 has just appeared at Nature Communications. Check out if you are interested in another example of GABAergic interneuron specificity:
2017-07-12
Paper published
We are very happy to announce that the review in Frontiers in Neuroanatomy has now been published and made available to the entire scientific community. Being reviewed by two eminent scientists in the field, it feels even better that it was well received by them and hopefully this will hold true for the rest of the readership, despite its provocative content.
2017-06-21
Manuscript accepted at Frontiers
We are happy to announce that a review paper has just been accepted at Frontiers in Neuroanatomy. This insightful piece of science is part of a themed issue on cortical layersIronically, Julien has clearly argued why layers as such (probably) have no function. Let's see how the community will appreciate it.
2017-06-06
New Publication
As the "Facebook for Scientists" (i.e. Research Gate ;-) already let me know during the weekend, our new review on GABAergic interneurons is availble online and read by many people. Please check out the following link if you are interested:
2017-05-24
SAVE the DATE for Barrels & Beyond
In one year from now, May 24/25 2018, we will host another conference on cortical function here in Göttingen, sponsored by the SFB 889. There will be several sessions on barrel cortex and beyond, covering all hot topics of current research. Confirmed speakers so far are Massimo Scanziani, Michael Brecht, Natalie Rochefort, Alison Barth and Solange Brown. Watch out for further information!
2017-05-15
Manuscript accepted at Neuroscience
I am happy to announce that a collaborative review on GABAergic interneurons (with Dirk Feldmeyer and colleagues) has just been accepted at Neuroscience. It will be part of a Special Issue "S1: Barrel Cortex", edited by Heiko Luhmann, Miguel Maravall and Christiaan der Kock. Looking very much forward to seeing it printed!
2017-03-27
Manuscript accepted at Nature Communications
Are hippocampal Martinotti cells different? At least in the manuscript of Hurtdo-Zavala et al., entitled
TRPV1 regulates excitatory innervation of OLM neurons in the hippocampus
we helped to show Camin Dean's group that they display interesting molecular and circuit mechanisms that so far haven't been detected in the neocortex.
2017-03-21
German Neuroscience Meeting starts tomorrow
The bi-annual German Neuroscience Meeting, always happening in Göttingen, starts tomorrow!Please check out the web site for further information;
We are looking very much forward to present our posters to colleagues from all over Germany but also from the rest of Europe. Welcome to Göttingen, friends.
2017-03-02
Press release by the UMC
A press release by the University Medical center features our recent Nature Communications publication. If you like to learn how our results can be explained to a broader audience, please check
2017-02-17
Successful grant applications!
Dr. Tran Tuoc just has been granted a project entitled „Chromatin and epigenetic regulation in neuronal migration“ by the Board of Schram-Stiftung. Congratulations!With this achievement he is also invited to speak at the symposium, presenting all grant winner:
http://schram-stiftung.de/pdf/schram_symposium_2017_poster_abstract_programm.pdf
2017-01-31
First publication in 2017
Mirko contributed to an interesting publication in Nature Medicine. Congratulations!If you want to learn about VIP neurons in addiction and schizophrenia, please check out
2016-12-21
Christmas celebration 2016
No pictures but anyway big fun! Maybe we were just too busy with the good food at the restaurant "Abessina" or too baffled about all the more or less beautiful presents that were unveiled during our "Wichtel event". So, it was a perfect wrap-up of a nice and successful year in the lab.
2016-10-24
Manuscript accepted at Nature Communications
HURRAY!After a 13 months delivery period our latest scientific baby has been born,
named:
Parvalbumin- and Vasoactive intestinal polypeptide -expressing
neocortical interneurons impose differential inhibition on Martinotti
cells
It was brought to light at Nat Comm. A special thanks to Mirko and Martinfor making it happen!
2016-10-11
New Publication
That was fast now! PLOS already published our study, which is Open Access of course.RESEARCH ARTICLE
Morphological Characteristics of Electrophysiologically Characterized Layer Vb Pyramidal Cells in Rat Barrel CortexPLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0164004 October 5, 2016
2016-09-28
Manuscript accepted at PLoS ONE
A cumbersome submission and review process has come to an end after ca. 13 months! We just got accepted with a manuscript whose data was still from the "rat age" which has been terminated in Göttingen for us.PONE-D-15-41037R3
Morphological characteristics of electrophysiologically characterized layer Vb pyramidal cells in rat barrel cortex
2016-09-26
The Anatomische Gesellschaft conference was a big success
From Tuesday 20th to Saturday 24th of September the 111th meeting of the Anatomische Gesellschaft took place at the Center of Anatomy of the UMG. With roughly 400 participants it was more than a big success, it was a record breaker. From an Institute for Neuroanatomy perspective the most exciting happenings were the Anatomy Slam at the Lumiere, where Georg Hafner was the secret winner. Well done, Georg!The preconference workshop on teaching saw Mirko Witte giving his peers an insightful time, when he used the latest tricks in didactics to teach the teachers on the subject of voluntary movements. Thanks for a great lecture, Mirko.
On Saturday, Julien Guy gave a wonderful talk to show the fascinated colleagues that the first-ever two-photon-targeted patch-clamp recordings at German anatomical institutes happened in our lab. Thanks for keeping the faith, Julien!
And last but not least, Alvar Prönneke's Cerebral Cortex paper was elected "Paper of the Year" by the members of the Anatomische Gesellschaft. Congratulations, Alvar!
2016-09-15
Anatomy Slam and Conference
Next week two remarkable premieres will take place in Göttingen, in which the Institute for Neuroanatomy participates.On Tuesday, 20.09, the first Anatomy Slam is going to happen at the cinema Lumière. For details see press release:
From Wednesday to Saturday, the 111th meeting of the Anatomical Society will be hosted by the Center of Anatomy of the University Medicine Göttingen. Highlights from the neuroscience perspective will be the keynote lectures by Tobias Moser and Moritz Helmstädter. For details see full program:
http://anatomische-gesellschaft.de/a4/landing/index.html#Program
2016-09-11
New Publication
After a very long delay, caused by the sluggish response of Jiang et al., in the latest issue of Science our technical comment finally appeared. It is a community response spearheaded by Ed Callaway, Bernardo Rudy and Jochen Staiger that aims at showing the limitations of Jiang et al.'s work as published last year in Science.http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6304/1108.1
2016-09-10
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006274
New publication
Christina, Huong, Joachim et al about BAF complexes in olfactory epithelium neurogenesis is online´ed in Plos Genetics.http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006274
2016-08-29
Manuscript accepted at Cerebral Cortex
After a tough but very fair review process, we got accepted at Cerebral Cortex with the second manuscript originating from Julien's PhD thesis. Congratulations!Thalamic input to clusters of layer 4 fated neurons in the reeler somatosensory cortex is monosynaptic but weaker than in wild-type.
Julien Guy, Alexandra Sachkova, Martin Möck, Mirko Witte, Robin J. Wagener, Jochen F.Staiger, Institut für Neuroanatomie
2016-08-22
New Publication
After an extensive review period, a joint manuscript with the Stieglitz-Lab at the IMTEK in Freiburg was successfully published in Biomed Microdevices. Well done Christina and Julien!Please check out:
Biomed Microdevices (2016) 18:81
DOI 10.1007/s10544-016-0106-7Intracortical polyimide electrodes with a bioresorbable coating
Christina Hassler1,2 & Julien Guy2,3 & Max Nietzschmann1,2 & Dennis T.T. Plachta1,4 &Jochen F. Staiger2,3 & Thomas Stieglitz1,2,5
2016-08-12
Another cover picture
As a reward for stunning images, our recent publication Wagener et al. also made it on the cover of the June issue of Cerebral Cortex. Please check out and enjoy!
2016-08-09
New website for the Barrels community
To ease the spread of information and interaction between contributing labs, the organizing committee of the BARRELS conferences (longest standing SfN Satellite meeting) has launched a new website. Please visit for the latest information on the upcoming meeting in Los Angeles November 10-11, 2016.http://www.vibrissa.org/
2016-06-27
Work outing - Betriebsausflug 2016
We are the lucky ones ..., in the middle of a rain and thunderstorm period, again, we have chosen the nicest day of the week to go climbing, do culture and heavy eating - all on one day! We visited a climbing park in the Habichtswald and the world heritage spot Kassel-Herkules Bergpark to see the fantastic Water festivals. It felt like a great trip to all participants thanks to the great organization of Mirko!
2016-06-21
DenkBAR - A public awareness event
At the pleasant location of the bar Apex, presented by the Kulturverein APEX, the CNMPB (Center for Nanoscale Microscopy and Molecular Physiology of the Brain; moderator: Heike Conradt) presented a public awareness event, in which Jochen Staiger and Sebastian Kügler talked about viral vectors as the new supertools in neuroscience. Despite strong competition with the European football championships the event was well visited and the audience was discussing lively on the many facets that were presented during the 2 talks.DenkBAR: „Viren machen nicht nur krank: (un)heimliche Helfer in der Hirnforschung“
2016-05-30
Barrel Conference 2016
The Barrels/BaCoFun Conference recently held in Amsterdam was a big success. More than 160 participants from more than 40 labs heard the latest on all kinds of cortical physiology, function but also anatomy and development. A very hot topic was VIP interneurons and their role in sensory-guided behaviors.For more information and photos see
http://barrelcortexfunction2016.com/images.html
2016-03-22
New publication
An "Extra view" by Huang et al. on epigenetic regulation by BAF complexes was published online at Cell Cycle.
Please check: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15384101.2016.1160984
2016-01-28
BigNeuron Project
BigNeuron hackathon at ICL London
2015-12-24
New Public Affairs Initiative
Jochen Staiger was elected as member of the public relation committee of the German Anatomical Society.
New initiatives are the "Paper of the month" and a "Science Slam" in Göttingen for the next year.
2015-12-15
Paper of the Month 12/2015
Our paper "Characterizing VIP Neurons in the Barrel Cortex of VIPcre/td Tomato Mice Reveals Layer-specific Differences" was selected as the first "paper of the month" in December by the German Anatomical Society.
2015-12-12
Christmas Celebration 2015
We were visiting the small but very nice Christmas market in our town Goettingen and then enjoyed the evening together at the "Omega" greek restaurant with little presents from the "Santa Claus".
2015-11-27
new publication
Thalamocortical Connections Drive Intracortical Activation of Functional Columns in the Mislaminated Reeler Somatosensory Cortex (accepted at Cerebral Cortex)
2015-11-25
new publication
Epigenetic regulation is crucial in cortical development. See our new open access publication.
http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(15)01216-4.pdf
2015-11-17
Defence of PhD Julien Guy
Julien Guy succesfully defend in his final board examination including the presentation and defence of his PhD thesis.
2015-11-16
Barrels Conference 2016
Check out for the next Barrels conference that will take place in Amsterdam in May 2016. Tons of great science on all parts of the Cortex ahead, See http://barrelcortexfunction2016.com/Program.html
2015-11-12
Barrels 28 in Chicago
The Barrels Meeting, co-organized by Jochen Staiger, again was a big success. Approximately 90 scientists gathered at the School of Law of Northwestern University Chicago. Next to world-class science from the Barrel Cortex and beyond, the participants enjoyed the sizzling athmosphere of downtown Chicago with its spectacular high rises.
2015-10-17
Neuroscience 2015 - October 17-21
This year’s meeting will be held October 17-21 in the beautiful city of Chicago, Illinois, one of the top convention and meetings destinations in the United States.
2015-09-25
110th Anatomical society meeting
This year´s meeting will be held on September 23-25 in Würzburg. We will actively participate with 3 contributions.
2015-08-17
Defence of MD Bianca Scheuer
Bianca Scheuer succesfully defend in her final board examination including the presentation and defence of her medical doctor´s thesis.
2015-08-14
new publication
Characterizing VIP neurons in the barrel cortex of VIPcre/tdTomato mice reveals layer-specific differences (accepted at Cerebral Cortex)
2015-07-23
Work outing - Betriebsausflug 2015
We enjoyed this beautiful day at the "Hofgut Stammen" with: canoeing on the river Diemel, play volleyball or "Kubb" and of course a rich BBQ.
2015-06-22
Interneuron Conference 2015
In 2015 the EMBO Workshop "Cortical interneurons in health and desease" will be held in Costa d´En Blanes (Mallorca) from 22.-25. June.
2015-05-19
new publication
What types of neocortical GABAergic neurons do really exist? e-Neuroforum (Springer)
2015-05-01
new publication
A gradual depth-dependent change in connectivity features of supragranular pyramidal cells in rat barrel cortex (Brain Structure and Function)
2015-03-26
Cortical GABAergic neurons. In: Brain Mapping: An encyclopedic reference (Toga AW, ed), pp 69-80. Elsevier.
new publication
Cortical GABAergic neurons. In: Brain Mapping: An encyclopedic reference (Toga AW, ed), pp 69-80. Elsevier.
Job Offerings:
2017-08-01
Free PhD student position
Topic: Functional analysis of synaptic networks formed by cortical GABAergic interneurons
In the project we will analyze the inhibitory circuitry within the columnar structure of the somatosensory (barrel) cortex. GABA-releasing interneurons play a central role in different aspects of cortical information processing. We will use a broad spectrum of electrophysiological, histochemical and microscopic methods. The core methods are paired whole-cell patch-clamp recording, optogenetic stimulation and mapping of synaptic inputs of interneurons in acute brain slices. Afterwards the neurons will be stained and quantitatively reconstructed in 3D (see Walker et al., Nature Communications 2016; Proenneke et al., Cereb. Cortex 2015).
2017-07-01
Student Assistant for single cell reconstruction
We offer a position as a student assistant (10h or 20 h per week) to contribute to a DFG funded research project dealing with the classification of cortical neurons (De Felipe et al., Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2013). Your obligation is to reconstruct dye-filled neurons that were electrophysiologically characterized. For this purpose we use the software “Neurolucida”. Requirements are (i) a dedication to working at a microscope, (ii) three-dimensional thinking and (iii) computer knowledge (Windows). We prefer long-term commitments due to the rather long learning period.
MD-Projects:
2020-01-01
Schwerpunkt 5
Nachweis von GABAb-Rezeptoren auf GABAergen Interneurone im somatosensorischen Kortex mittels HybridisierungstechnikenTechniken:
- Fluoreszenz-in-situ-Hybridisierung/ Hairpin-Chain-Reactionan Hirnschnitten
- Mikroskopische Auswertung: Erstellen von virtuellen Schnitten und Zellzählung
- statistische Auswertung mit Statistica und SPSS
- Bildbearbeitung mit Adobe Photoshop
Dauer: 6-9 Monate
2020-01-01
Techniken:
Schwerpunkt 2
Nachweis der elektrophysiologischen Wirkung der Neuromodulatoren ACh, NA und Serotonin auf GABAerge Interneuronen im somatosensorischen KortexTechniken:
- Herstellen von akuten Hirnschnitten von Mäusen
- in vitro Patch-Clamp Ableitungen
- Pharmakologische Untersuchungen
- Aufnahme und Auswertung von elektrophysiologischen Daten mit CED Signal
- statistische Auswertung mit Sigma Plot und Statistica
- Bildbearbeitung mit Adobe-Programmen
Dauer: 6-9 Monate
2020-01-01
Techniken:
Dauer 6-9 Monate
Schwerpunkt 1
Schichtenspezifische Charakterisierung von Parvalbumin-exprimierenden Neuronen im somatosensorischen Kortex mittels Flip/Cre-MäusenTechniken:
- Perfusion von Mäusen
- Immunhistochemische Färbetechniken und Fluoreszenz In-Situ Hybridisierung von je 2-3 Schnitten von 4 Tieren
- Mikroskopische Auswertung: Erstellen von virtuellen Schnitten und Zellzählung
- statistische Auswertung mit Statistica und SPSS
- Bildbearbeitung mit Adobe Photoshop
Dauer 6-9 Monate
Master/Bachelor Projects:
2020-01-01