Michel van den Oever and Esther Visser were involved in a study on compulsive alcohol use led by Markus Heilig and Esi Domi at the Linköping University in Sweden. Using the viral-TRAP technique developed by the CNCR Memory Circuits team, they identified a small population of PKC-delta-expressing neurons in the central amygdala that drives footshock-punished alcohol intake. Their findings are published in Science Advances.

A collaborative study by members of the Memory Circuits team together with the lab of Harm Krugers and Sylvie Lesuis (UvA) reveals that elevated levels of the stress hormone corticosterone induce an increase in the size of a hippocampal fear engram and this change underlies generalized expression of fear in a neutral environment. Their findings were published in Biological Psychiatry.

A new study by David Hondius, Frank Koopmans and colleagues provides molecular evidence that so-called granulovacuolar cells are representing the pre-tangle neuronal stage in Alzheimer disease. The study was published in Acta Neuropathologica on January 25, 2021.