Raul Andero obtained his Ph.D. in Neuroscience (Extraordinary Doctoral Prize) from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in 2010 studying behavioural animal models of stress and memory. Then he started as Postdoctoral Fellow and later promoted to Research Associate at the laboratory of Dr Ressler - Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Emory University, USA -. Professor Andero joined McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School as Faculty - Instructor in Psychiatry - in 2015. He combined studies with psychiatric patients and animal models of fear memory. He established his laboratory in 2016 at the UAB-Institute of Neuroscience as Ramón y Cajal Fellow. Since 2021 as ICREA Research Professor he continues the work of his laboratory aiming to translate behavioural and molecular basic findings into the clinic.
Research interests
Professor Andero's group is focused on behavioural and neural mechanisms of stress and memory in the brain. Specifically, the laboratory studies how stress changes molecular processes underlying fear memories in the brain of both animal models and humans. Additionally, they aim to further understand sex differences in these fear memory circuits which will help to find more effective treatments for patients suffering anxiety and fear-based disorders such as Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic disorder or specific phobias.
Selected publications
- Porta-Casteràs D, Cano M, Steward T, Andero R & Cardoner N 2022, 'The pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide system as a sex-specific modulator of hippocampal response to threat stimuli', Neurobiology of Stress, 18:100448.
- Florido A, Moreno E, Canela EI & Andero R 2022, 'Nk3R blockade has sex-divergent effects on memory in mice', Biology of Sex Differences 13(1):28.
- Velasco ER, Florido A, Flores Á, Senabre E, Gomez-Gomez A, Torres A, Roca A, Norrholm S, Newman EL, Das P, Ross RA, Lori A, Pozo OJ, Ressler KJ, Garcia-Esteve LL, Jovanovic T & Andero R 2022, 'PACAP-PAC1R modulates fear extinction via the ventromedial hypothalamus', Nature Communications, 13(1):4374.
Selected research activities
Professor Andero is the Director of the Rodent Behavioral Core at the Institute of Neuroscience, Autonomous University of Barcelona.