University Medical Center (UMC) Mainz

Maria Felicia Basilicata  Christian Behl  Benedikt Berninger  Luciana Berod  Tobias Bopp  Andreas Daiber  Sven Danckwardt  Carsten Deppermann  Stephan Grabbe  Thomas Hofmann  Thomas Kindler  Daniela Kramer  Daniela Krause  Dilja Krueger-Burg  Michael Kühn  Beat Lutz  Johannes Mayer  Wolfram Ruf  Susann Schweiger  Natalia Soshnikova  Tim Sparwasser  Oliver Tüscher  Sara Vieira-Silva  Ari Waisman  Philipp Wild  Jennifer Winter  Fatemeh Zare-Shahneh 

Synaptic Inhibition in Health and Disease

GABAergic synaptic inhibition plays a key role in shaping the flow of information throughout the brain, and accordingly, inhibitory system dysfunction is observed in a wide range of pathological processes related to both ageing and psychiatric disorders. To date, however, surprisingly few pharmacotherapies targeting the GABAergic system are clinically available, largely due to a profound lack of knowledge on the molecular mechanisms regulating inhibitory synaptic transmission and their consequences for neural circuits and behavior.

Research in our group focuses on investigating how GABAergic synapses are altered in diseases ranging from anxiety disorders to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, using a combination of molecular, cellular, circuit and behavioral approaches in mouse models. Given the diversity of GABAergic neuron subtypes, each with distinct functions in orchestrating information processing in neuronal networks, we are particularly interested in understanding how different GABAergic synapse subtypes may differentially contribute to disease etiology, and how this knowledge may be exploited to develop new and more specific therapeutic strategies. 

Research website

Positions held

  • Since 2021: W2/Heisenberg-Professor, Institute of Anatomy, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
  • 2019 – 2021: Group leader, Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center of the Georg August University Göttingen
  • 2015 – 2019: Project group leader, Department of Molecular Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine, Göttingen
  • 2010 – 2014: Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Molecular Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine, Göttingen
  • 2007 – 2010: Postdoctoral fellow, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Education

  • 2007: Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Yale University, USA
  • 2001: M/Biochem in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Oxford University, UK

Selected publications by Dilja Krueger-Burg

Cruces-Solis H, Babaev O, Ali H, Piletti Chatain C, Mykytiuk V, Balekoglu N, Wenger S and Krueger-Burg D (2021) Altered theta and beta oscillatory synchrony in a genetic mouse model of pathological anxietyFASEB J 35:e21585 Link 

Babaev O, Cruces-Solis H, Piletti Chatain C, Hammer M, Wenger S, Ali H, Karalis N, de Hoz L, Schlüter OM, Yanagawa Y, Ehrenreich H, Taschenberger H, Brose N and Krueger-Burg D (2018) IgSF9b regulates anxiety behaviors through effects at centromedial amygdala inhibitory synapses. Nat. Commun. 9:5400 Link

Krueger-Burg D, Papadopoulos T and Brose N (2017) Organizers of inhibitory synapses come of age. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 45:66-77 Link

Babaev O, Botta P, Meyer E, Müller C, Ehrenreich H, Brose N, Lüthi A, and Krueger-Burg D (2016) Neuroligin 2 deletion alters inhibitory synapse function and anxiety-associated neuronal activation in the amygdala. Neuropharmacology 100:56-65 Link

Hammer M*, Krueger-Burg D*, Tuffy L, Cooper BH, Taschenberger H, Goswami SP, Ehrenreich, H, Jonas P, Varoqueaux F, Rhee JS, Brose N (2015) Perturbed hippocampal synaptic inhibition and γ-oscillations in a neuroligin-4 knock-out mouse model of autism. Cell Rep. 13:516-23 
(* co-first authors) Link