Christoph Anacker, PhD

Principal Investigator

Dr. Anacker received his PhD in 2011 at King’s College London in the UK, where he established a novel human hippocampal stem cell model to study the effects of stress hormones and antidepressants on hippocampal neurogenesis in vitro. He then completed postdoctoral training at McGill University in Montreal, where he studied the neural circuits underlying stress vulnerability, as well as epigenetic effects of early life influences on brain function. He then continued his postdoctoral training at Columbia University in New York, where he discovered that adult hippocampal neurogenesis can confer stress resilience by inhibiting neural activity of the ventral dentate gyrus. Dr. Anacker started his lab in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University in 2019, where he studies the neural circuits and molecular mechanisms underlying stress susceptibility and resilience. His lab combines transgenic mouse models, in vivo brain imaging, optogenetic techniques, and molecular approaches, to study how stress at different stages of development causes psychiatric disorders. The goal of this research is to find new ways to target these mechanisms so that we can develop novel treatments and preventive strategies for psychiatric disorders.

Link to CV