Publications by Johannes Gräff

ABBA+BraiAn, an integrated suite for whole-brain mapping, reveals brain-wide differences in immediate-early genes induction upon learning

Arne Seitz, Johannes Gräff, Nicolas René Chiaruttini

Elsevier BV2025

A modular toolbox for the optogenetic deactivation of transcription

Light-controlled transcriptional activation is a commonly used optogenetic strategy that allows researchers to regulate gene expression with high spatiotemporal precision. The vast majority of existing tools are, however, limited to light-triggered inducti ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2024

Chromatin plasticity predetermines neuronal eligibility for memory trace formation

Liliane Glauser, Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Marion Leleu, Johannes Gräff, Simone Astori, Giulia Santoni

Memories are encoded by sparse populations of neurons but how such sparsity arises remains largely unknown. We found that a neuron’s eligibility to be recruited into the memory trace depends on its epigenetic state prior to encoding. Principal neurons in t ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science2024

Prefrontal engrams of long-term fear memory perpetuate pain perception

Johannes Gräff, Yechao Han

A painful episode can lead to a life-long increase in an individual's experience of pain. Fearful anticipation of imminent pain could play a role in this phenomenon, but the neurobiological underpinnings are unclear because fear can both suppress and enhan ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2023

From cellular to fear memory: An epigenetic toolbox to remember

Johannes Gräff

Throughout development, the neuronal epigenome is highly sensitive to external stimuli, yet capable of safeguarding cellular memory for a lifetime. In the adult brain, memories of fearful experiences are rapidly instantiated, yet can last for decades, but ...

Current Biology Ltd2023

Nutritional metabolism and cerebral bioenergetics in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

Johannes Gräff, Giulia Santoni

Disturbances in the brain's capacity to meet its energy demand increase the risk of synaptic loss, neurodegeneration, and cognitive decline. Nutritional and metabolic interventions that target metabolic pathways combined with diagnostics to identify defici ...

WILEY2023

Face your fears: attenuating remote fear memories by reconsolidation-updating

Johannes Gräff, Bianca Ambrogina Silva

Traumatic events generate some of the most enduring memories, yet little is known about how long-lasting fear memories can be attenuated. In this review, we collect the surprisingly sparse evidence on remote fear memory attenuation from both animal and hum ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON2023

Prenatal stress aggravates age-dependent cognitive decline, insulin signaling dysfunction, and the pro-inflammatory response in the APPNL-F/ NL-F mouse model of Alzheimer's disease

Johannes Gräff

Accumulating evidence indicates that early adverse life experiences may be involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Prenatal stress (PS) can affect brain maturation and neuroimmune and metabolic interactions, leading to age-dependent cogni ...

ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE2023

Tissue clearing applications in memory engram research

Johannes Gräff, Kwok Yui Reymond Yip

A memory engram is thought to be the physical substrate of the memory trace within the brain, which is generally depicted as a neuronal ensemble activated by learning to fire together during encoding and retrieval. It has been postulated that engram cell e ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2023

Brain-wide screen of prelimbic cortex inputs reveals a functional shift during early fear memory consolidation

Johannes Gräff, Lucie Pauline Dixsaut

Memory formation and storage rely on multiple interconnected brain areas, the contribution of which varies during memory consolidation. The medial prefrontal cortex, in particular the prelimbic cortex (PL), was traditionally found to be involved in remote ...

2022

The HDAC inhibitor CI-994 acts as a molecular memory aid by facilitating synaptic and intracellular communication after learning

Johannes Gräff, Jose Vicente Sanchez Mut, Allison Marie Burns, Giulia Santoni

Long-term memory formation relies on synaptic plasticity, neuronal activity-dependent gene transcription, and epigenetic modifications. Multiple studies have shown that HDAC inhibitor (HDACi) treatments can enhance individual aspects of these processes and ...

2022

A thalamo-amygdalar circuit underlying the extinction of remote fear memories

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Johannes Gräff, Bianca Ambrogina Silva, Simone Astori, Allison Marie Burns, Giulia Santoni

Silva et al. reveal distinct circuits for the extinction of remote fear memories, with the thalamic nucleus reuniens and its outputs to the basolateral amygdala taking center stage. Fear and trauma generate some of the longest-lived memories. Despite the c ...

2021

Comprehensive analysis of PM20D1 QTL in Alzheimer's disease

Liliane Glauser, Johannes Gräff, Jose Vicente Sanchez Mut

Background Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex disorder caused by a combination of genetic and non-genetic risk factors. In addition, an increasing evidence suggests that epigenetic mechanisms also accompany AD. Genetic and epigenetic factors are not ind ...

2020

Membrane activity detection in cultured cells using phase-sensitive plasmonics

Liliane Glauser, Johannes Gräff, Xiaokang Li, Jose Vicente Sanchez Mut, Yasaman Jahani, Foziyeh Sohrabi, Ershad Mohammadi

Despite the existence of various neural recording and mapping techniques, there is an open territory for the emergence of novel techniques. The current neural imaging and recording techniques suffer from invasiveness, a time-consuming labeling process, poo ...

2020

Cognitive epigenetic priming: leveraging histone acetylation for memory amelioration

Johannes Gräff, Allison Marie Burns

Multiple studies have found that increasing histone acetylation by means of histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) treatment can ameliorate memory and rescue cognitive impairments, but their mode of action is not fully understood. In particular, it is uncle ...

2020

Psychotropic drug-induced genetic-epigenetic modulation of CRTC1 gene is associated with early weight gain in a prospective study of psychiatric patients

Aurélie Delacrétaz, Johannes Gräff, Jose Vicente Sanchez Mut, Céline Dubath

Background: Metabolic side effects induced by psychotropic drugs represent a major health issue in psychiatry. CREB-regulated transcription coactivator 1 (CRTC1) gene plays a major role in the regulation of energy homeostasis and epigenetic mechanisms may ...

2019

A cFos activation map of remote fear memory attenuation

Johannes Gräff, Bianca Ambrogina Silva, Allison Marie Burns

Springer2019

Reactivation of Recall-Induced Neurons in the Infralimbic Cortex and the Basolateral Amygdala After Remote Fear Memory Attenuation

Ossama Mohamed Salah El-Dien El-Sayed Ibrahim Khalaf, Johannes Gräff

Whether the attenuation of traumatic memories is mediated through the suppression of the original memory trace of fear by a new memory trace of safety, or through an updating of the original fear trace towards safety has been a long-standing question at th ...

2019

Epigenetic regulation of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease

Johannes Gräff

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV2019

Engram Excitement

Johannes Gräff, Zimbul Albo

Engram cells can encode and switch between multiple mnemonic functions, but how they intrinsically do so is unknown. Pignatelli, Ryan, and colleagues show that upon memory recall, the engram's excitability is transiently elevated, allowing its bearer to ad ...

2019