The INc-UAB Researcher Raül Andero Gali has been awarded a Leonardo grant to study the molecular mechanisms underlying traumatic stress in a mouse model. The research will consist of studying how stress can alter memory neural networks in these animal models.
With the project "Translational biomarker of the experience of traumatic stress", Raül Andero and the team he leads at the Translational Mechanisms of Fear Memory Laboratory at the Institut de Neurociències (INc-UAB) aims to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying traumatic stress in a mouse model in order to find more effective treatments in mental health. The researcher will study how stress can alter neural memory networks in adult animal models. This is especially important today because of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, as stress levels have risen among the general population, leading to an increase in cases of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Raúl Andero Gali (Mollet del Vallès, Barcelona, 1980) is a psychologist with a Master's degree in Psychobiology and a PhD in Neurosciences from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He received an extraordinary PhD award in 2010 for the study of animal behavioural models of stress and memory, and until 2015 he developed his postdoctoral career in the United States, under the guidance of Dr Kerry Ressler, at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (Emor University). In 2015, he joined McLean Hospital-Harvard Medical School as a professor in the Faculty of Psychiatry. He set up his laboratory in 2016 at the Institut de Neurociències of the UAB as a Ramón y Cajal fellow. Since 2021, as ICREA research professor, he continues the work of his lab with the aim of translating basic molecular and behavioural findings into the clinic.
The Leonardo grant programme, from the BBVA Foundation, gives support to professionals aged 30 to 45 years to carry out innovative projects in different areas of scientific knowledge and culture.
In this edition, the ninth of the programme, a total of 884 applications were submitted, which were evaluated by 85 experts, who finally selected 60 of them. These individual projects are directed by professionals who are at a decisive moment in their careers, and who will be able to develop and manage a personal project thanks to the Leonardo grant.
