The Neuroendocrine Brain

Invited Speaker: Valery Grinevich 

Department of Neuropeptide Research in Psychiatry, Central Institute of Mental Health, Heidelberg University, Germany & International Joint Laboratory for Translational Research on Neuromodulation, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China 

Biography of the speaker: 

Valery Grinevich obtained his MD degree in 1992 from Kursk State Medical University (USSR/Russia), specializing in neurology and psychiatry. In 1996, he defended his PhD thesis on the evolutionary and comparative neuroanatomy of the oxytocin and vasopressin systems in vertebrates at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg under the supervision of Prof. Andrey L. Polenov. As a recipient of the Russian Presidential Award, he completed postdoctoral training with Profs. Fernand Labrie and George Pelletier in Quebec, studying hypothalamic mechanisms of the stress response, and later joined Greti Aguilera’s team at the NIH to investigate neuro-immuno-endocrine interactions. In 2001, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Dr. Grinevich joined Prof. Gustav Jirikowski’s group in Jena to study pathological alterations in human hypothalamic neurons. Although appointed Full Professor at Moscow State Medical University in 2003, he declined the position to pursue postdoctoral research with Prof. Peter H. Seeburg at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, where he learned methods of molecular neurobiology and developed cell-type-specific viral tagging of oxytocin neurons. He established his own research group there in 2008. In 2012, he became Head of the Independent Neuropeptides Group at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the University of Heidelberg. Since May 1, 2019, he has been Full Professor (W3) at the University of Heidelberg and Director of the Department of Neuropeptide Research in Psychiatry at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim. He also holds affiliate appointments at Georgia State University (USA) and, since 2025, heads the International Joint Laboratory for Translational Research on Neuromodulation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Valery Grinevich has published numerous seminal papers and received major awards and grants, including the ERC Synergy Grant and the German-Israeli Project Cooperation (DIP) grant, both of which he currently coordinates.  

Description of the general focus of the symposium:  

In this symposium, the overall theme will be about the neuroendocrine brain with a large focus on the hypothalamus and neurohypophysis, two interconnected and major evolutionarily conserved brain regions with multiple functions in reproduction and water balance. The speakers are chosen in such a way that each talk will touch on an important aspect of the neuroendocrine brain, using four different model organisms. The axonal oxytocin signaling in rat and human brain by Prof. Valery Grinevich (Central Institute of Mental Health, Heidelberg University, Germany), the spatial transcriptomics of mice neurohypophysis by Dr Ewelina Kałużna (Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, PAS, Poznan), the cell signaling mechanisms underlying vascular permeability in the zebrafish neurohypophysis by Athul R Ramesh (Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan). The symposia will unite researchers using different model organisms, questions, techniques, and functions. 

Axonal Oxytocin Signaling in Rat and Human Brain 

Brief description of the talk: 

Over the past decade, major advances have deepened our understanding of the oxytocin (OT) system, yet a central question remains: how can a single neuropeptide mediate such diverse actions in the brain? I propose that this diversity arises from distinct types of OT neurons, their widespread axonal projections, and the variety of OT-responsive cell populations across brain regions. In this talk, I will focus on axonal OT projections to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in rats, demonstrating OT action on local interneurons and its profound facilitation of social interactions. I will also present complementary findings from human stem cell-derived OT neurons, which extend axons toward cortical assembloids and, when integrated into the rat hypothalamus, form functional connections with multiple brain regions and the pituitary. Together, these results reveal conserved principles of axonal OT signaling across species, shedding light on the mechanisms underlying the peptide’s diverse functions in the mammalian brain.