Nadine Gogolla facts for kids

Nadine Gogolla is a leading scientist who studies the brain. She works at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, Germany. Dr. Gogolla explores how our brains handle emotions. She wants to understand how the brain combines outside signals, feelings, and emotions. This helps us make smart choices. She is famous for a discovery about mouse facial expressions. She used special computer programs and microscopes to sort mouse faces into different "emotion" groups. She then linked these faces to brain activity.

Early Life and Education

Nadine Gogolla started her science journey by studying human biology. She went to the University of Marburg in Germany. After that, in 2002, she earned her master's degree in Paris, France. There, she studied how the brain and immune system interact.

Graduate Studies

Also in 2002, Dr. Gogolla began her PhD studies. This was at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Switzerland. She focused on how the brain changes and adapts. During her PhD, she published several important papers. These papers shared new ways to study brain cells in the lab. For example, she found ways to watch brain slices for a long time. This helped scientists see how brain connections change.

In 2007, she finished her PhD with top honors. Her research showed how brain connections in the hippocampus change with experience. The hippocampus is a brain area important for memory. She also looked at how age affects these changes.

Postdoctoral Research

After her PhD, Dr. Gogolla moved to Harvard University in 2007. There, she studied how the brain develops during important "critical periods." These are times when the brain is very flexible.

She made a big discovery about fear memories. She found that certain brain materials, called perineuronal nets, protect fear memories. These nets are like shields around brain cells. If these nets are removed, old fear memories can be changed. This research could help people with conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD makes it hard for people to forget scary memories.

Dr. Gogolla also studied Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). She looked at how brain circuits might be different in ASD. She found that certain brain cells, called interneurons, were reduced in mouse models of ASD. These cells are important for normal brain development.

Later, she focused on the insular cortex (IC). This brain area helps us combine different senses. It also plays a role in emotions, social skills, and empathy. She found that in ASD models, the IC didn't combine sensory information correctly. But, she discovered that giving certain medicine to young mice could fix this. This suggests that helping brain circuits during development might be key for ASD.

Career and Research

In 2014, Dr. Gogolla returned to Germany. She became a research leader at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology. She also teaches at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Her lab now studies the insular cortex even more deeply. They want to understand how it connects to other brain parts. This research helps us learn how the IC affects emotions, empathy, and social behavior. This knowledge can help us understand brain conditions like schizophrenia, ASD, and mood disorders.

Studying Brain Activity

Dr. Gogolla's team uses advanced tools. They use special microscopes to watch brain cells in action. They also use computer programs (machine learning) to link brain activity to behavior. They can even use light (optogenetics) to control brain cells. This helps them see how specific brain circuits affect what mice do and feel.

In 2019, her team found that a part of the insular cortex (pIC) is linked to anxiety. They also found it plays a role in stopping eating. When they stimulated the pIC, mice showed signs of anxiety.

Mouse Facial Expressions

In 2020, Dr. Gogolla's team made a major breakthrough. They showed that mouse facial expressions can reveal their inner feelings. They used machine learning to study mouse faces.

Here's how they did it:

• They gave mice different tastes (sweet, bitter) or small shocks.
• They recorded the mice's faces.
• A computer program learned to spot tiny changes in facial muscles.
• They found that different emotions caused different facial expressions. For example, pain made a mouse's nose drop and ears tilt down.
• The expressions even changed with how strong the stimulus was.

This means that even if a mouse's face looks blank to us, a computer can see its emotions! This discovery helps scientists study emotions in animals much better. It opens new doors to understand how emotions work in the brain. This could lead to new ways to help people with emotional disorders.

Awards and Honors

• 2017: ERC Starting Grant "Insular Anxiety"
• 2011 – 2013: Charles A. King Trust, Post-doctoral Research Fellowship Award
• 2008 – 2011: Human Frontiers Science Program (HFSP) Long-Term Fellowship
• 2008 – 2011: Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research – Long-Term Fellowship (declined in favor of HFSP Award)
• 2008: Ed Fisher Prize, Best Ph.D. Thesis Award, Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel
• 1997 - 2002: German National Academic Merit Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes), full scholarship

Selected Publications