We welcome two new master students to our group.
Kristo`s master’s project aims to examine maternal immune activation in a Poly I:C mouse model of schizophrenia. Precisely, he will investigate how the interaction between the brain and gut microbiome in tandem with the activation of microglia might be responsible for the generation of schizophrenia-like behaviors. For that purpose, he will measure the concentrations of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in the selected bloodserum mice samples and thus evaluate the validity of the aforementioned interaction.
Selin is interested in the effects of early life stress on later brain development, particularly maternal stress. To this end, she will utilize molecular techniques to investigate the impact of maternal stress on the rat hippocampus.
After a year full of work, Kimberly Bösing submitted her master’s thesis entitled: Role of cellular senesence and activated microglia in the Poly (I:C) mouse model of schizophrenia in February. We congratulate her and wish her all the best for her future.
We are very happy to welcome Candy as a new master student. Candy is interested in using social behaviors for the investigation of psychiatric disorders.
On October 14, the first Faculty Day of the medical faculty of the RUB took place. This was organized by the Commission for Young Scientists. All clinics, institutes and chairs of the Bochum University Medicine were allowed to show their research and doctoral topics by means of a poster presentation. Of course, we were also represented with our working group.
On October 11th the start symposium for the National Centre of Affective Disorders (NCAD) took place in Frankfurt. Nadja Freund participated and was impressed by the interesting talks, nice atmosphere and fruitful discussions. Plans for collabortaions with animal models for affective disorders were already made. We are looking forward to further meetings and projects with our colleagues!
From 09/12/22 to 09/14/22 the third joint congress of the AGNP and DGBP took place in Berlin. Nadja Freund and Patrick Reinhardt took an active part in this congress. Patrick had the honor of giving a lecture on animal experiments on the hedonic effect of the dopamine D1 receptor and Nadja was honored to receive the DGBP young scientists award for her research. As part of the award ceremony, she gave a lecture with the following title: Dopamine receptor manipulation in rodents – Findings for Bipolar Disorder.
The 21st Annual Meeting of the DGBS in Frankfurt am Main was held under the heading: Bipolar and Addiction – Comorbidity and Differential Diagnosis. From September 9th, 2022 to September 11th, 2022, Kirsten Schmerder and Nadja Freund represented our working group and took part in various symposia and workshops.
From 15.08. – 19.08.22 the German-Turkish Summer School took place in Istanbul.