Arthur Konnerth
Arthur Konnerth
Arthur Konnerth studied medicine at the LMU Munich, obtained his doctoral degree at the MPI of Psychiatry Munich and his habilitation at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). He was full professor and director of the Institutes of Physiology at the Saarland University and held later similar positions at the TUM and LMU. From 2005 to 2018 he was the Friedrich-Schiedel Professor and director of the Institute of Neuroscience of the TUM. Currently he is a Hertie-Senior-Professor for Neuroscience, He is member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, of the Academia Europaea and of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and a Carl-von-Linde Senior Fellow of the TUM-IAS.
His current research is focused on the development and application of methods that allow a quantitative understanding of function and dysfunction of neurons and circuits in the intact brain. He and his team pioneered in vivo two-photon imaging of cortical circuits with single cell resolution. More recently, they have developed the LOTOS (low power temporal oversampling) method of high-resolution two-photon calcium imaging and used it for the functional mapping of dendritic spines in vivo. These approaches are used in the lab for the exploration of behavior-determined synaptic signaling and dendritic signal integration in neurons of defined brain circuits. A major goal of his research is a better understanding of the cellular and circuit mechanisms of learning and memory in the healthy brain, as well as the pathophysiology underlying the impairment of cognition and memory in Alzheimer’s disease.
The Brain Prize 2015 is also awarded to:
