Dietmar Schmitz

Dietmar Schmitz is a neuroscientist. His research focuses on the question of how brain cells communicate with each other and how learning and memory formation function. At neuronal and psychiatric diseases such as epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, autism or schizophrenia, these processes are often dysfunctional. His research aims to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie many neurological diseases. These findings provide the basis for the improvement of diagnostics and the development of suitable therapies.

The research of his group focuses on the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortex and the parasubiculum – the regions that are affected in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. With his research group, he has presented a series of internationally acclaimed results that form an important basis for future research on neurological diseases. For example, he succeeded in deciphering the previously unknown circuitry of the entorhinal cortex, which plays a central role in spatial navigation, memory formation and learning processes, as well as in elucidating the disruption of neurons in epilepsy, combined with the development of ideas to reverse this disruption.