PDF (15.90 MB) - Boehringer Ingelheim Annual Report 2012

CIRCUIT MECHANICS OF EMOTIONSUnderstanding how the brain works is one of science’s greatestchallenges. Traditional methods to explore the nervous system areof limited resolution in time and space. Advanced technologies incircuit genetics will close this gap and open up new perspectivesfor studying brain function and treating disorders.SHAPING THE FUTUREOF RESEARCHDeepening scientific knowledge is a central issue for BoehringerIngelheim. This is why we are the main sponsor of the the ResearchInstitute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna (Austria). Thisfundamental biomedical research centre is one of the European“hot spots” for research in the area of molecular biology.WULF HAUBENSAKNeurobiologist and IMP researcherWulf Haubensak pursues the goalof understanding how emotions,such as fear or pleasure, are generatedin the brain. A StartingGrant by the European ResearchCouncil (ERC), which was awardedto him in 2012, will substantiallysupport his project.Research at the IMP spans a widerange of topics, broadly organisedinto four themes: life at the molecularand cellular levels, informationprocessing and storage in neural circuits,mechanisms of organismal developmentand disease, and interdisciplinaryapproaches that bring ideasand methods from other fields tobear on biological questions.The common goal in all of these areasis to elucidate the mechanisms andprinciples that underlie complex biologicalprocesses.Circuit neuroscienceFor over a century, neuroscientists reliedon functional-anatomical studiesof the brain to gain a rough understandingof its workings. Observationof patients with brain lesions and ofthe effects this had on their behaviouroffered the only clue to the functionalconnectivity of the brain, but itwas a random and unpredictablemethod. And it could not tackle thequestions that modern neurobiologyseeks to answer: what are the molecularmechanisms that process andstore information within neural circuits?And how do activity patternsin neural circuits give rise to perceptionand behaviour?Questions like these are addressed byresearch groups at the IMP. Exploitinggenetic tools, they identify, describeand manipulate the specific circuitsand molecules that are relevant for acertain behaviour, aiming at thesmallest functional units of the brain.When emotions arise, multiple brain34 Boehringer Ingelheim annual report 2012