Rebalancing cortical neuronal hyperactivity as a new treatment strategy in Neuroinflammation (B09)

• Subject Area: Clinical Neurology; Neurosurgery and Neuroradiology
• Term: from 2012 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 213904703

In the previous funding period we discovered a maladaptive cortical network dysregulation linked with anxiety behavior as a pathological mechanism in murine neuroinflammation (Ellwardt et al., Nat. Neurosci. 2018) contributing to initiation of neurodegeneration. We now aim at (1) dissecting the causal relation between brainstem pathology and cortical maladaptive hyperactivity, (2) unravelling the relation of local network dysregulation to brain-wide networks, and (3) pharmacologically modulating cortical hyperexcitability and translating our findings to MS patients.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 128: Initiating/Effector versus Regulatory Mechanisms in Multiple Sclerosis - Progress towards Tackling the Disease
• Applicant Institution: Universität Münster
• Project Heads: Dr. Erik Ellwardt, from 1/2021 until 2/2023; Professor Dr. Albrecht Stroh; Professorin Dr. Frauke Zipp, until 12/2020