Nadine Gogolla

Dr. Nadine Gogolla is a Director at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry and an Associate Faculty member at the Graduate School for Systemic Neuroscience (GSN). Her research bridges behavioral, cellular, and molecular neuroscience to decode the neural basis of emotions, focusing on the insular cortex and its role in integrating brain-body interactions. She pioneered methods to quantify emotion states in mice using machine learning and two-photon imaging, linking facial expressions to neural activity.

Gogolla earned her B.S. in human biology at the University of Marburg, an M.S. in neuroimmune interactions at Inserm Paris, and a Ph.D. in neurobiology from the University of Basel. Her postdoctoral work at Harvard with Takao Hensch explored critical periods in brain development, leading to groundbreaking insights in autism models and fear memory plasticity.

Her research spans emotion, neural circuits, interoception, and translational neuroscience. She develops innovative tools like the COMBO window for chronic cranial imaging and genetically encoded sensors for orexin neuropeptides. Her work on emotion-state quantification via multimodal profiling has redefined how emotions are studied in animal models.

Scientific awards include the ERC Starting Grant, Charles A. King Trust Fellowship, and HFSP Long-Term Fellowship. She mentors PhD and Master’s students, including Michaela Junghänel and Dr. Nejc Dolensek, who contributed to studies on facial expression decoding and neural circuit mapping.