Philip Tovote takes over as director of the Institute of Clinical Neurobiology

Philip Tovote is taking over as director of the Institute of Clinical Neurobiology from the Institute's founder, Michael Sendtner. Philip Tovote served as co-director of the institute since 2017. He also holds the chair for Systems Neurobiology at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, and heads the Defense Circuits Lab at the Würzburg University Hospital. Philip Tovote initially studied zoology in Göttingen and later specialized in neuroscience. After he did his PhD on emotion regulation at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine, he spent 4 years at the University of Hawai'i in Honolulu, where he worked with Caroline and Bob Blanchard and became an expert in rodent behavior. He then moved back to Europe for a PostDoc at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland, in the lab of Andreas Lüthi. With his research during this time, he established himself as an expert in the study of neural networks that control fear and anxiety. Today, he is involved in several national and international research consortia and is particularly active in translational neuroscience, which aims to apply findings from basic research to medical applications. His research focuses on how the brain generates basic emotions such as anxiety and fear. In particular, he investigates the neural circuits that process threats and trigger corresponding physical and behavioral responses. Taking a more holistic approach towards understanding the underpinnings of defensiveness, his research focuses on interactions between the brain and the cardiovascular system as crucial determinants of emotional states.