• adaptive modification in the responsiveness of hippocampal and frontal cortical neurons to 5-hydroxytryptamine induced by repeated treatment with psychotropic drugs and corticosterone;
• adaptive modifications of glutamatergic transmission in the frontal cortex induced by antidepressant treatments and corticosterone;
• the influence of repeated treatment with psychotropic drugs and corticosterone on synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus;
• cellular mechanisms of aversive training-induced plasticity of the somatosensory cortex;
• the significance of prostaglandins (PG) generated by constitutive and inducible cyclooxygenase in the corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) and vasopressin (AVP)-induced activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis during chronic social stress;
• the role of neurotransmitters in the central regulation of the HPA under basal and stress conditions.

Electrophysiological:
- whole cell patch clamp and extracellular recording from neurons in brain slices in vitro.

Behavioural:
- models of stress - repeated handling, restraint stress and chronic social crowding.

Biochemical:
- assessment of neurotransmitters and their metabolites by HPLC;
- the spectrofluorometric assay of corticosterone;
- the radioimmunoassay of ACTH in plasma.

The Department cooperates with:

the Institute of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University of Heidelberg (Germany)

- investigation of the effect of stress on synaptic plasticity.

PhD Students:

Engineers, Technicians, and Other Employees: