Developmental Neurobiology
Head of the group
Molecular analysis of neuronal connectivity
A neuron establishes up to thousands of synapses which are the fabric of the communication within the nervous system. The number, strength as well as specificity of synapses and the balance between inhibitory and excitatory neurons determine brain function. A longstanding goal of neuroscientists therefore is to understand how the enormous degree of connectivity of neurons is established during embryonic and early postnatal development and how this connectivity becomes modulated by experience-dependent processes. Dr Rathjen´s laboratory focuses on two subtopics of the “wiring” problem: on (1) the branching of axons and on (2) links between electric activity and proteins implicated in structural modeling of neuronal circuits.