Kempermann Group
We study the interaction of genes and behavioral activity in the regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Given that the hippocampus is critically in many memory processes critical to human life, most notably autobiographic and episodic memory but also including all kinds of declarative learning and spatial orientation, and that the hippocampus is early and prominently affected in dementias and depression, preventing, compensating or reverting loss of hippocampal function is an important target for medicine in an aging society.
© CRTD/Kempermann Lab
Our research
Against common wisdom even the adult and aging brain can generate new neurons from a population of resident stem cells but it does so only in two privileged regions and on a minute scale. This process, adult neurogenesis, however, is tightly linked to brain function in the hippocampus, a brain area centrally involved in learning and memory processes. This connection makes it likely that adult neurogenesis serves a fundamental function for higher cognitive functions.
FUTURE PROJECTS AND GOALS
Our goal is to understand how new neurons contribute to brain function and health and disease and how lifestyle and activity build a “neurogenic reserve” to allow functional compensation in the face of old age and beginning dementia.
Our specific aims? Stay tuned …
If you have any questions regarding our research or if your are interested in a scientific collaboration please contact us.
Group Leader
NameProf. Dr. Gerd Kempermann
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