Professor Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
- M.Sc. (Physics), University of Wisconsin, (1967)
- Dr.rer.nat. (Physics), Institute of Technology, Munich (1970)
- Research associate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany (1972 - 1975 and 1976 - 1982) and as a guest in the laboratory of Dr. Ch.F. Stevens at Yale University, Dept. of Physiology, New Haven, Conn. (1975 - 1976)
- Fairchild Scholar, California Institute of Technology; Pasadena, USA (1989)
- Director of the Membrane Biophysics Department at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany (1983 - 2011)
Major Research Interests
Molecular Mechanisms of Exocytosis, Neurotransmitter Release, and Short Term Synaptic Plasticity
In order to understand how the brain handles its information flow and adjusts synaptic connections on the second and subsecond timescale, one has to understand all aspects of synaptic transmission ranging from availability of vesicles for exocytosis, presynaptic electrophysiology, Ca++ signalling, the process of exocytosis, and postsynaptic neurotransmitter action. Our work concentrates on presynaptic aspects.. We use neuronal cell cultures and brain slices for studying mechanisms of short term plasticity, such as depression and paired pulse facilitation. The Calyx of Held, a specialized synapse in the auditory pathway, offers unique possibilities for simultaneous pre- and postsynaptic voltage clamping. This allows a quantitative analysis of the relationship between [Ca++] and transmitter release. We recently developed techniques to express mutated synaptic proteins in the Calyx terminal, such that the functional role of specific molecules can be studied on the single-cell level.
Homepage Department/Research Group:
http://www.mpibpc.mpg.de/groups/neher/index.php?page=home
Selected Recent Publications
