German Research Foundation SPP 1665 funds work in the Letzkus lab to dissect the organization of cortical circuits connecting to the amygdala

German Research Foundation SPP 1665 funds work in the Letzkus lab to dissect the organization of cortical circuits connecting to the amygdala.

Under the priority program 1665 (Resolving and manipulating neuronal networks in the mammalian brain - from correlative to causal analysis), the DFG has recently funded a collaborative project that will use novel tools developed by the lab of Klaus-Karl Conzelmann (Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich) for the investigation of cortical circuits that connect to different amygdala nuclei: the labs of Nadine Gogolla and Rüdiger Klein (both MPI of Neurobiology, Martinsried) will investigate afferents to the central amygdala, while the Letzkus lab (MPI for Brain Research) will address the organization of cortical input to the lateral amygdala. Together, this research is expected to reveal general organization principles of the brain-wide neuronal networks that underlie learning, and that are also thought to play a major role in human anxiety disorders.