Prof. Ewelina Knapska is the head of the Laboratory of Emotions Neurobiology at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. Her area of expertise is the neurobiological basis of emotions, particularly in the mechanisms of socially transferred emotions in rodent models of emotional contagion. Emotional contagion, the capacity to be affected by and/or share the emotional state of another individual, is considered to be the simplest form of empathy. Her laboratory researches neuronal circuits in the amygdala underlying both directly evoked and socially transferred positive and negative emotions.
To understand how the systems underlying emotions and social communication operate, they employ rat and mouse models, as well as utilize techniques such as neuronal tracing, electrophysiological recording, and optogenetics. The two main questions their research focuses on are: (1) Are the neural circuits underlying positive and negative social emotions distinct? (2) Does the social brain exist, i.e., are there neural circuits specialized in social emotions?
Her lab also investigates the brain circuits and cellular mechanisms underlying impaired social interactions and the possibilities of therapeutic intervention in mouse genetic and idiopathic models of autism spectrum disorder. Using state-of-the-art automatic systems for assessing social behavior and neurobiology tools, they aim to identify the neuronal circuits related to autism.
