Masseck Group

The Masseck Lab develops new tools to illuminate how neuronal circuits interact and combines optogenetics, electrophysiology, imaging, and behavior to decipher the role of neuromodulators in complex behaviors such as decision making, learning, health and disease.

What are we offering?

We develop tools for the neuroscience community, such as biosensors for serotonin and calcium. Our research focuses on understanding how neuromodulators influence complex behaviors, including learning and memory, decision-making, and social interactions. To achieve this, we employ cutting-edge approaches such as circuit neuroscience, optogenetics, fiber photometry, miniscope imaging, in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology, and machine learning.

What are we interested in for collaboration?

We are interested to collaborate on tool development, data analyses and in vivo imaging.

What platforms, analysis tools or facilities do we use and can share?

We are happy to share or even develop biosensor tools for you. We can share our behavioral knowledge and data analysis pipelines for fiber photometry, SLEAP and miniscope imaging.

Discover our homepage here.

To learn more about Prof. Dr. Olivia Masseck follow her on ORCID or Twitter or Bluesky.

Methods

• Optogenetics – Light-based control of neuronal activity.
• Electrophysiology – Recording electrical activity in neurons.
• Fiber Photometry – Real-time measurement of neuromodulators.
• Miniscope Imaging – In vivo calcium imaging in behavior.
• Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM) – to develop new improved biosensors.
• Imaging and electrophysiology in heterologous expression systems and organotypic slice cultures.
• Machine Learning – Analyzing complex behavioral and neural data.

5 selected publications

1. Fink R, Imai S, Gockel N, Lauer G, Renken K, Wietek J, Lamothe-Molina PJ, Fuhrmann F, Mittag M, Ziebarth T, Canziani A, Kubitschke M, Kistmacher V, Kretschmer A, Sebastian E, Schmitz D, Terai T, Gründemann J, Hassan S, Patriarchi T, Reiner A, Fuhrmann M, Campbell RE, Masseck OA. PinkyCaMP a mScarlet-based calcium sensor with exceptional brightness, photostability, and multiplexing capabilities. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2025 Jan 11:2024.12.16.628673. doi: 10.1101/2024.12.16.628673. PMID: 39763884; PMCID: PMC11702558.
2. Martin Kubitschke, Vanessa Beck, Olivia Andrea Masseck. Fluorescence lifetime imaging of sDarken as a tool for the evaluation of serotonin levels. bioRxiv [Preprint]2024.01.04.574197; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.01.04.574197.
3. M. Kubitschke, M. Müller, L. Wallhorn, M. Pulin, M.Mittag, S. Pollok, T. Ziebarth, S.Bremshey, J. Gerdey, KC Claussen, K. Renken, J. Groß, N. Meyer, S. Wiegert, A. Reiner, M. Fuhrmann, Masseck OA. sDarken: Next generation genetically encoded sensors for serotonin. Nature Comm. 13, 7525 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35200-w.
4. Spoida K, Eickelbeck D, Karapinar R, Eckhardt T, Mark MD, Jancke D, Ehinger BV, König P, Dalkara D, Herlitze S, Masseck OA (2016). Melanopsin Variants as Intrinsic Optogenetic On and Off Switches for Transient versus Sustained Activation of G Protein Pathways. Curr Biol. 2016 May 9;26(9):1206-12. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.03.007. Epub 2016 Apr 7.PMID: 27068418.
5. Masseck OA, Spoida K, Dalkara D, Maejima T, Rubelwoski JM, Wallhorn L, Deneris ES, Herlitze S. (2014) Vertebrate cone opsins enable sustained and highly sensitive rapid control of Gi/o signaling in anxiety circuitry. Neuron 81 (6): 1263-1273.