Rise up! funding for Anna Schroeder

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Anna Schroeder, Professor of Systemic Neuroscience at LMU, has been selected by the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation for its Rise up! program. Supporting outstanding and exceptionally creative basic research in biology, chemistry, and medicine, the program is open to researchers holding their first role as an associate professor (W2) at a German university.

Emotions profoundly impact our behavior, shaping both the decisions we make and how we respond to the world around us. Neuroscientist Prof. Anna Schroeder investigates how the brain generates these internal states, like fear and anxiety, and how they guide behavior in dynamic environments. To support this work, she has been awarded a grant of around 600,000 euros. Schroeder’s research focuses on a little-known brain region called the zona incerta, which recent findings suggest plays a key role in how the brain processes fear and anxiety. Using state-of-the-art techniques – including in vivo imaging, behavioral analysis, and circuit mapping and manipulation techniques in mice – Schroeder and her team aim to uncover how this region integrates into the brain’s emotional networks and shapes responses to perceived threats. Insights into how the zona incerta contributes to fear- and anxiety-related behaviors could open new paths for treating anxiety disorders and broaden the therapeutic potential of deep brain stimulation, which already targets this area in other clinical contexts.

Anna Schroeder completed her doctorate in neuroscience at the VIB Center for Brain & Disease Research and KU Leuven (Belgium) in 2018. Subsequently, she worked as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and the University of Freiburg before moving to LMU in 2025 to take up her professorship in neuroscience.