Social interactions are fundamental elements of our behavioral repertoire. Their specific properties, whether they are of positive or negative valence, are considered critical for the well-being of social species. Positive or affiliative social interactions are rewarding and beneficial, whereas negative social experiences can have extremely detrimental effects on the individual. Social stress is a highly prevalent traumatic experience, present in multiple contexts, such as war, bullying and interpersonal violence, and it has been linked with increased risk for major depression and anxiety disorders. A stressful or fearful experience activates body and brain circuits to respond to the challenge and then, with time, this response can decrease or in some cases, increase. The response of the individuals to a traumatic event, behavioral, neurobiological or hormonal, is hypothesized to be relevant for stress-related and anxiety disorders, as well as their subtypes, such as delayed-onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety disorder and specific phobias.
We are performing basic research, aiming to characterize and understand behavioral and neurobiological aspects of social trauma. Specifically, using behavioral paradigms, optogenetics, chemogenetics and whole-cell patch clamp recordings, our lab aims to advance our understanding regarding social stress and its corresponding brain circuits. We will focus on social stress as it is a particularly relevant and omnipresent form of stress in our society. We aspire that our results will contribute to the refinement and discovery of treatments for trauma-triggered psychopathologies.
Stamatina Tzanoulinou, Assistant Professor
 |
Stamatina Tzanoulinou has received her PhD from the EPFL at the laboratory of Prof. Carmen Sandi, working on early-life stress models with a focus on reward-related and social behaviors. She then proceeded to conduct postdoctoral research with Prof. Camilla Bellone, first at the University of Lausanne, and then moving at the University of Geneva. During this appointment, Stamatina combined her behavioral expertise with whole-cell patch clamp recordings and chemogenetic approaches in order to functionally interrogate synaptic properties in autism animal models with a focus on alterations of the mesolimbic dopamine pathway. After being awarded an SNF PRIMA grant, she started her lab in June 2023 at the Department of Biomedical Sciences at University of Lausanne, studying the consequences of social trauma. |
Corinne Pfister, Lab technician
 |
Corinne obtained her MS in Microbiology from the University of Lausanne. She then joined the group of Prof. Bernard Rossier at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at UNIL as a lab technician. In 2004 she joined the Mehdi Tafti’s lab at the Center for Integrative Genomics. Corinne has joined the group of Prof. Tzanoulinou since 2023. |
Lito Parapera-Papantoniou, PhD student
 |
Lito obtained her BSc degree in Biology from the University of Crete (Greece), where she investigated the role of SATB1 protein in phase separation, using molecular biology techniques. Then, she received her MSc degree in Molecular Biology - Biomedicine from the University of Crete and the IMBB-FORTH. Adopting behavioral tests and imaging in transgenic mice, she studied the prefrontal cortical development upon neuronal autophagy impairment in adolescence. During her MSc studies, she also moved to France for an internship at the Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience, where she implemented behavioral tasks in rats to study pattern discrimination processes. In 2023, she joined the Social brain physiology lab at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Lausanne, for a PhD in Neuroscience. During her PhD, she will combine her behavioral expertise with chemogenetics and ex vivo electrophysiology to dissect behavioral alterations and the underlying brain circuitry in the aftermath of trauma. |
Pierre-Hugues Prouvot Bouvier, senior SNF researcher
 |
Pierre-Hugues initially studied in Paris Descartes university obtaining his master’s thesis under Brandon Stell testing early applications of all optical physiology in slices. He then did a long Phd in the lab of Albrecht Stroh at the Johannes Gutenberg university Mainz, establishing combinations optogenetics, calcium imaging and multi-site electrophysiological recordings in the barrel cortex of mice. He also worked in establishing two-photon all-optical physiology in awake mice. Having an interest in microcircuits and mechanisms of anesthesia, he joined the laboratory of Mehdi Tafti to study the Pontine microcircuits of natural REM sleep. Following this appointment, since December 2023, he has joined the labs of Prof. Paolicelli and Prof. Tzanoulinou where he studies neurobiology and behavior. |
Orysia Vityk, Master student
 |
Orysia obtained her BSc in biology at the Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Ukraine. Since then, her main interests became psychiatry and behavior. She enrolled at the University of Lausanne for an MSc in medical biology with Neuroscience as her chosen track. Orysia joined Prof. Tzanoulinou Lab to study social stress paradigms and their consequences on brain cognitive and behavioral functioning. |
