Julie LE MERRER
18
Documents
Présentation
Currently Research Director at CNRS, I am a neuroscientist expert in behavioral psychopharmacology, reward processes and social behavior in mice.
I defended a State Doctorate in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2000, while I was pursuing a PhD in Neurosciences and Pharmacology from 1997-2002 in the lab of Robert Jaffard (University of Bordeaux), under the supervision of Pierre Cazala. During my PhD, I explored the role of mu opioid receptors in interfacing learning, anxiety and motivation in the septum. In 2003, I started a first post-doctoral position at the University of Sussex (UK), under the supervision of Dai Stephens, where I investigated plastic and behavioural consequences of alcohol withdrawal and conditioning to drug and food cues. In 2006, I joined the lab of Brigitte Kieffer at IGBMC (Strasbourg). There, I characterized the long-term behavioral and transcriptional consequences of drug exposure and explored the functional roles of mu and delta opioid receptors using knockout mouse models. I notably validated the mu opioid receptor null mice as a model of autism, and identified for the first time the mGlu4 receptor as a promising therapeutic target to relieve autistic symptoms.
I was recruited as a research Associate at CNRS in 2014 and established my team in co-direction with Jerome Becker, molecular biologist and pharmacologist, at PRC (INRA, CNRS, University of Tours). We focused our research on identifying the neurobiological underpinnings of social behaviour under physiological and pathological (autism) conditions and developing novel therapeutic strategies to relieve autistic symptoms across multiple mouse models. We have implemented various complementary approaches to achieve these goals, from in vitro pharmacology and transcriptome analysis to behavioural pharmacology, local gene knockdown and optopharmacology. These fruitful years of research have confirmed our strong interest in neuropsychiatric disorders and we are now joining the team “Neuro-functional Psychiatry” at iBrain, Inserm U1253, University of Tours.
Publications
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Phénotypage de la maturation hypophysaire. Impact de l'allaitement artificielJournées d’animation scientifiques du Département Physiologie Animale et Systèmes d’Elevage, May 2022, Poitiers, France
Communication dans un congrès
hal-03752742v1
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Effect of orphan GPR88 on delta opioid signaling in vitro and in vivo4. Annual Meeting of the GDR 3545 "RCPG-Physio-Med", Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). FRA., Nov 2015, Toulouse, France
Communication dans un congrès
hal-02742607v1
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Effect of orphan GPR88 on delta opioid signaling in vitro and in vivoPoster de conférence hal-02801043v1 |
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Chronic sodium bromide treatment relieves autistic-like behavioral deficits in three mouse models of autism2021
Pré-publication, Document de travail
hal-03379576v1
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