Prof. Dr. Denis Burdakov

Prof. Dr.  Denis Burdakov

Prof. Dr. Denis Burdakov

Full Professor at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology

ETH Zürich

Professur für Neurowissenschaften

SLA C 3

Schorenstrasse 16

8603 Schwerzenbach

Switzerland

Additional information

Denis joined ETH in 2017 from The Francis Crick Institute in London.

He was born in 1979, and grew up in Kyiv, Ukraine, and the UK. He graduated from Oxford (BA 2001, PhD 2004), where he studied medicine, physiology, and biophysics. In addition to working as a Senior Group Leader at the Crick, he previously held tenured faculty appointments at the University of Cambridge (Associate Professor of Pharmacology) and at King's College London (Professor and Chair of Systems Neuroscience); he also held an honorary professorship at UCL and a visiting professorship at UFRGS, Brazil. He has been a recipient of awards and grants from the ERC (Starting Grant), HFSP (Young Investigator Award), SNSF, MRC, BBSCR, HHMI, The Royal Society, and Diabetes UK.  

Denis' research centers on general principles of brain function and malfunction, and their relation to our body. The Burdakov lab studies neural signals and computations that convert sensory context into appropriate actions, appetites, and arousal. The experiments focus on dynamics and interconnectivity of specific neurons, but the pursued questions are broad, overlapping with fields such as engineering (what control algorithms are best for performance in an uncertain world? what are their strengths and weaknesses?) and medicine (how can we target specific brain signals to treat common diseases?). A key focus is on pan-CNS-projecting "brain orchestrator" circuits radiating from the hypothalamus, and postulated to be tunable by our internal state, including the diets we eat. Such neurons - for example orexin/hypocretin neurons - are increasingly implicated in disorders of energy balance, sleep, motor control, mood, and cognition. 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Li H-T, Viskaitis P, Bracey E, Peleg-Raibstein D, Burdakov D (2024) Transient targeting of hypothalamic orexin neurons alleviates seizures in a mouse model of epilepsy. Nature Communications, 15: 1249call_made

Grujic N, Tesmer A, Bracey E, Peleg-Raibstein D, Burdakov D (2023) Control and coding of pupil size by hypothalamic orexin neurons, Nature Neuroscience, 26(7):1160-1164.call_made

Li H-T, Donegan D, Peleg-Raibstein D, Burdakov D (2022) Hypothalamic deep brain stimulation as a strategy to manage anxiety disorders. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA,119(16): 1-9call_made

Viskaitis P, Arnold M, Garau C, Jensen LT, Fugger L, Burdakov D (2022) Ingested non-essential amino acids recruit brain orexin cells to suppress eating in mice. Current Biology,32: 1-10call_made

Concetti C, Peleg-Raibstein D, Burdakov D (2020) Control of fear extinction by hypothalamic MCH neurons. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 117(36): 22514-22521call_made

Karnani M, Schöne C, Bracey E, Gonzalez J, Viskaitis P, Li H-T, Adamantidis A, Burdakov D (2020) Role of spontaneous and sensory orexin neuron dynamics in rapid locomotion initiation. Progress in Neurobiology, 187: 101771call_made

Kosse C, Burdakov D (2019) Natural hypothalamic circuit dynamics underlying object memorization. Nature Communications, 10(1): 2505call_made

Blomeley C, Garau C, Burdakov D (2018) Accumbal D2 cells orchestrate innate risk-avoidance according to orexin signals. Nature Neuroscience, 21(1): 29-32call_made

Kosse C, Schöne C, Bracey E, Burdakov D (2017) Orexin-driven GAD65 network of the lateral hypothalamus sets physical activity in mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 114(17): 4525-4530call_made

Gonzalez A, Iordanidou P, Strom M, Adamantidis A, Burdakov D (2016) Awake dynamics and brain-wide inputs of hypothalamic MCH and orexin networks. Nature Communications,call_made7: 11395call_made

Gonzalez A, Jensen L, Iordanidou P, Strom M, Fugger L, Burdakov D (2016) Inhibitory interplay between orexin neurons and eating. Current Biology, 26(18): 2486-2491call_made

Apergis-Schoute J, Iordanidou P, Faure C, Jego S, Schöne C, Aitta-Aho T, Adamantidis A, Burdakov D (2015) Optogenetic evidence for inhibitory signaling from orexin to MCH neurons via local microcircuits. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(14): 5435-41call_made 

Schöne C, Apergis-Schoute J, Sakurai T, Adamantidis A, Burdakov D (2014) Coreleased orexin and glutamate evoke nonredundant spike outputs and computations in histamine neurons. Cell Reports, 7(3) 697-704call_made

Karnani M, Apergis-Schoute J, Adamantidis A, Jensen L, de Lecea L, Fugger L, Burdakov D (2011) Activation of central orexin/hypocretin neurons by dietary amino acids. Neuron, 74(2): 616-629call_made

Gonzalez J, Jensen L, Fugger L, Burdakov D (2008) Metabolism-independent sugar sensing in central orexin neurons. Diabetes, 57(10): 2569-76call_made

Williams R, Alexopoulos H, Jensen L, Fugger L, Burdakov D (2008) Adaptive sugar sensors in hypothalamic feeding circuits. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA,105(33):11975-80call_made

Williams R, Jensen L, Verkhratsky A, Fugger L, Burdakov D (2007) Control of hypothalamic orexin neurons by acid and CO2. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 104(25):10685-90call_made

Course Catalogue

Spring Semester 2024

Number Unit
752-6303-00L Neurobiology of Eating and Drinking
752-6306-00L Physiology and Anatomy II
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