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Schuster group


Principal investigator:
Interdisciplinary Centre for Neurosciences
Bernstein Centre for Computational Neurosciences
Dept. Neurobiology
University of Heidelberg
Im Neuenheimer Feld 345
69120 Heidelberg

Tel.:
0049-6221-548300
Fax:
0049-6221-544496
Email:
schuster@nbio.uni-heidelberg.de
 

General research interests and goals:


The detailed characterization of higher brain functions such as learning & memory and memory modulation as well as the underlying network- and synaptic plasticity phenomena is often hindered by the overwhelming complexity of mammalian brains. In contrast, the brains of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster harbor 10ⶠtimes fewer neurons than human brains and flies still show a remarkably rich repertoire of complex behaviors and plasticity phenomena. We therefore use flies in a highly interdisciplinary approach to assess the principal cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying various forms of experience-dependent plasticity. Our research focuses on the following aspects:

• cellular and molecular principles of long-term memory (LTM) formation and LTM-modulation, such as LTM-extinction, reconsolidation and reinstatement;
• principles of small network functions and functional state switches with a focus on computational approaches;
• cellular and molecular principles of experience-dependent potentiation of glutamatergic synapses.

Project:


A4

Current group members:

PostDocs: Dr. Dan Bucher / Markus Knodel / Dr. Matthias Knirr / Jan Hörtzsch
PhD students: Yeung Yeung Leung / Romina Geiger / Tairi Aljand / Nina Dräger
Associates: Nadine Stowasser / Ann-Kathrin Dachtler / Emilia Sancho Vargas

Key publications:

Ge L, Leung YY, Parisotto D, Schuster CM (2017) AKT activity controls the functional status of vesicle release machineries. Under revision .
Knodel MM, Geiger R, Ge L, Bucher D, Grillo A, Wittum G, Schuster CM, Queisser G (2014) Synaptic bouton properties are tuned to best fit the prevailing firing pattern Front Comput Neurosci 8:101 .
Weislogel JM, Bengtson CP, Muller MK, Hortzsch JN, Bujard M, Schuster CM, Bading H (2013) Requirement for nuclear calcium signaling in Drosophila long-term memory Science Signal 6:ra33 .
(2013) UG4: a novel flexible software system for simulating PDE based models on high-performance computers. Comp.Vis.Sci. 16(4), 165-169 (2013) .