The ZNZ is growing! We are proud to welcome three new group leaders.
New Group Leaders
Prof. Birgit Kleim
Department of Psychology, UZH and Psychiatric University Hospital (PUK)
Which factors lead to the development of psychiatric disorders and which, on the other hand, promote resilience in the context of potentially traumatic experiences? Moreover, which mechanisms make today’s psychotherapies effective? Can we still improve these by translating results from basic science such as that on autobiographic memory or on “offline” memory consolidation in sleep? We investigate these and other questions in clinical and experimental studies, also supported by our sleep/EEG laboratory. More
Dr. Nathalie Giroud
Department of Computational Linguistics, UZH
We investigate mechanisms of language processing in the brain using a variety of neuroimaging techniques (e.g. EEG, MRI) as well as psychophysical and neuropsychological testing. Our research focuses on the neural underpinnings of the highly prevalent age-related hearing loss and speech perception difficulties in older adults. The long-term goal of our research is to develop rehabilitation strategies for audio(-visual) speech processing difficulties in healthy older adults and individuals with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. More
New Junior Group Leader
Dr. Katharina Gapp
Institute for Neuroscience, ETH Zurich
Our research evolves around environmentally increased neuropsychiatric disease risk and the associated changes of the epigenome. We study both directly exposed mice and their offspring, which through a mode of DNA-sequence independent inheritance are often affected by parental exposures as well. The mechanism of such non-genetic effects still remains to be elucidated, but undoubtedly involves the germline. We use a range of innovative technologies, including in vivo crispR cas9 (gene level), pharmacological small molecules (protein level), siRNA (RNA level) in combination with bulk, low input and single cell sequencing techniques. More