Welcome

I am a researcher working at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, CNRS. We are located in the south of France. Explore this site to know more about what we do.

Research Interest

Mental health is vital to overall well-being, as highlighted by the World Health Organization’s slogan, “No health without mental health.” Mental disorders, particularly anxiety and depression, are major contributors to the global disease burden and are the leading causes of disability among non-communicable diseases. In Europe alone, approximately 40% of the population, or 164.8 million people, experience mental disorders annually. Anxiety and depression, while often co-occurring, involve distinct symptoms and underlying brain circuits. Anxiety is linked to excessive worry and fear, engaging circuits like the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis involved in threat detection. Depression, associated with persistent sadness and loss of interest, is tied to dysfunction in reward circuits, such as the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway. However, overlapping circuit involvement suggests a complex interplay that remains poorly understood.

Pharmacological treatments, like SSRIs, offer some relief but suffer from delayed onset, limited efficacy, and significant resistance in nearly 50% of cases. This gap reflects a plateau in drug development due to a lack of targeted therapies and diminished pharmaceutical investment. My research focuses on understanding stress-induced alterations in neural circuits and exploring circuit-based strategies for precise, effective interventions. Advancing this knowledge could revolutionize treatments for anxiety and depression, paving the way for personalized medicine.

Current Projects

neuronal circuits of emotions

Fear and anxiety underlie a specific set of measurable behavioural, physiological, hormonal and autonomic reactions. Both are emotions experienced by all individuals and can serve to be adaptive in shaping decisions and behaviours related to survival of an organism. However, when excessive or pathological, or triggered inappropriately, fear and anxiety form the basis of a variety of anxiety disorders. In my research program, I explore the hypothesis that the VTA region is an upstream modulator of classic anxiety centres, participating in the continuous detection and evaluation of environmental stimuli, and acting in conjunction to generate appropriate physiological and behavioural responses.

balancing risk-taking behaviours

Balancing appetitive and aversive motivations is essential for most animals to eat without being eaten. In humans, this interplay of motivations is required for appropriate decision making. These processes are controlled by parallel and sometimes overlapping brain circuits, commonly referred to reward and aversion systems. Though originally studied as separate somehow opposite circuits, current research including work from our laboratory demonstrated that this is an oversimplification.

brain neuromodulation

As our research unravels the association between mental illness and dysfunction in discrete brain circuits, we will seek to re-regulate these circuits as a new therapeutic approach to alleviate symptoms. Many brains regions have been or are being studied as target of brain stimulation and its potential to treat psychiatric disorders, including the amygdala, the ventral striatum, the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. We are exploring approaches to provide bio-feedback onto modulation techniques that target specific brain circuits.

Get in touch at fernandez@ipmc.cnrs.fr

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