AG Ponomarenko

The overarching goal of this research is to shed light on physiological as well as pathological real-time interactions between brain systems, supporting learned and innate behaviors. Innate behaviors are conserved across species and orchestrated primarily by the hypothalamus. Their examples include exploration of the environment, food seeking and intake, diverse social behaviors, avoidance of noxious stimuli and regulation of vigilance states. Appropriate initiation and termination of these crucial patterns relies on the availability of resources, environmental cues, hormonal regulations and previous experience. How is this information presented to and processed by the hypothalamus in order to generate adaptive and flexible behavioral outputs? …read more

A perceivable reflection of brain dynamics, network oscillations are among most impressive brain signals. Thanks to their consistency and correlations with neuronal activity, oscillations offer a reliable physiological metric for studies of concurrent neuronal interactions in health and disease. First genetic mouse models of dysfunctional inhibition and excitation of interneurons in the laboratory of Hannah Monyer at the University of Heidelberg exhibited severe yet distinct alterations of hippocampal oscillations as well as of their coupling, partly reminiscent, also regarding behavioral phenotypes, of patients with dementia. More recently, working with the group of Thomas Jentsch at the FMP in Berlin, we investigated impaired network synchronization and spatial representations in the hippocampus upon the genetic ablation of KCNQ3- and dominant negative mutation of KCNQ5-potassium channels. Disfunctions of these channels have been linked to cognitive deficits in humans. …read more

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