Curriculum Vitae#

The research of Witter on the relationship between the architecture of neuronal networks and their function is and has been very influential towards understanding the medial temporal lobe memory system. His early work paved the way to the important concept about functional differentiation along the long axis of the hippocampus, and the relevance of the interactions between the at time poorly understood entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus. His work pointed to the relevance of the entorhinal cortex as a major structure mediating the navigational functionality contributed initially to the hippocampus and this eventually led to his long and still lasting collaborations with Edvard and May-Britt Moser that eventually led to the Nobel-Prize awarded discovery of spatially modulated neurons in the entorhinal cortex, the so-called grid cell. His current research still centres on the functional relevance of the entorhinal cortex, and has led to major breakthrough discoveries and resulting new insights into the functional organization of the main episodic memory system in the brain. Aside from this strong conceptual contribution, he is currently applying his knowledge to try to understand the initiation of Alzheimer’s disease, that starts in the entorhinal cortex, aiming to find effective new treatments.



Witter’s activities are embedded in an extensive international network, he has several visiting positions around the world, based on his extensive scientific portfolio (over 200 peer reviewed experimental papers; over 270 contributions to International Scientific Meetings and over 30 invited lectures at international meetings)