Aarhus University Seal

Sâmia Joca

Joca Lab - Translational Neuropharmacology

How pscyhoactive drugs affect our brain to regulate mood, motivation and cognitive aspects associated with stress-related psychiatric disorders (e.g. depression and anxiety)? How can we use this information to understand disease neurobiology and foster the development of improved therapeutic for mental disorders?

These are some of the questions that our group is trying to answer. Our research focus is the mechanism of action of psychoactive drugs, primarly antidepressants, examining how these unique molecules influence neural plasticity, stress responses, and emotional regulation. We are particularly interested in understanding how lipid mediators, such as endocannabinoids, affect neuroplasticity and behavior.

We use translational approaches combining animal models of stress-related psychiatric disorders, in vitro models for drug testing (primary and immortalized cell cultures), molecular biology methods for protein and mRNA quantification, evaluation of drug-receptor interactions, neurochemical analysis (neurotransmitters and lipid mediators), and microscopy (immunofluorescence, confocal). We collaborate with different groups at Aarhus University and abroad to tackle our research questions with different methodological approaches and perspectives.

News


Alumni Group Leader Mark Denham: “If you had asked me ten years ago if I’d be in this position after nine years, I would have said; ‘That would be amazing’.”

Graphical illustration of Mark Denham's research in stem cells
- People news

Mark Denham was the first researcher to work with stem cells at Aarhus University when he joined as a new Group Leader at DANDRITE in 2013. Today, his…

New proteomic method provides novel insights into the brain’s plasticity

Graphic from the article: (A) Schematic comparison between a conventional proteomic strategy and DiDBiT for the isolation and analysis of biotin-labeled NSPs. (B) Schematic representation of the TMT strategy and (C) DiDBiT-TMT strategy for the analysis of the whole proteome and the nascent proteome. 
- Research

Researchers have added a special tagging method to the traditional technique, increasing the sample size nearly fivefold when detecting newly…