Neuropeptide functions and mechanisms 

Schimmer S, Lefevre A, Lebedeva J, Rozov A, Kania A, Raftogianni A, Afordakos K, Tiwari R, Netser S, Patwell R, Hefter D, Boender A, Podpecan Y, Schubert T, Sanetra A, Trenk A, Gugula A, Hurlemann R, Althammer F, Blasiak A, Melzer S, Monyer H, Wagner S, Eliava M, Grinevich V:

Oxytocin facilitates social behavior of female rats via selective modulation of interneurons in the medial prefrontal cortex. bioRxiv, 2025 Link

Melzer S, Newmark E, Mizuno GO, Hyun M, Philson AC, Quiroli E, Righetti B, Gregory MR, Huang KW, Tian L, Sabatini BL: 

Bombesin-like peptide recruits disinhibitory cortical circuits and enhances fear memories. Cell 2021, 184 (22): 5622-563 PDF Link

Jekély G, Melzer S, Beets I, Grunwald Kadow IC, Koene J, Haddad S, Holden-Dye L: 

The long and short of it: a perspective on peptidergic regulation of circuits and behaviour. Journal of Experimental Biology, 2018, 221 Link

Tool development

Cola RB, Niethammer SN, Rajamannar P, Gresch A, Bhat MA, Assoumou K, Williams ET, Hauck P, Hartrampf N, Benke D, Stoeber M, Levkowitz G, Melzer S, Patriarchi T: 

Probing PAC1 receptor activation across species with an engineered sensor. eLife, 2024 Link

Wu Y, Wu M, Vázquez-Guardado A, Kim J, Zhang X, Avila R, Kim JT, Deng Y, Yu Y, Melzer S, Bai Y, Yoon H, Meng L, Zhang Y, Guo H, Hong L, Kanatzidis E, Haney CR, Waters EA, Banks AR, Hu Z, Lie F, Chamorro LP, Sabatini BL, Huang Y, Kozorovitskiy Y, Rogers JA: 

Wireless multi-lateral optofluidic microsystems for real-time programmable optogenetics and photopharmacology. Nature Communications, 2022 Link PDF

Neuronal circuits and cell types

Johnson C, Kretsge LN, Yen WW, Wingfield KK, Sriram B, O’Connor A, Liu RS, Jimenez JC, Rhadke RA, Yeung C, Jinadasa TJ, Nguyen TPH, Cho ES, Fuchs E, Spevack ED, Velasco BE, Hausmann FS, Fournier LA, Brack A, Melzer S, Cruz-Martín A: 

Highly unstable heterogenous representations in VIP interneurons of the anterior cingulate cortex. Molecular Psychiatry, 2022 Link PDF

Melzer S, Monyer H: 

Diversity and function of corticopetal and corticofugal GABAergic projection neurons. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2020, 21: 499-515 PDF  Link

Melzer S*, Gil M*, Koser DE, Michael M, Huang KW, Monyer H: 

Distinct corticostriatal GABAergic neurons modulate striatal output neurons and motor activity. Cell Reports 2017, 19 (5): 1045-1055 PDF Link

Leitner FC*, Melzer S*, Luetcke H, Pinna R, Seeburg PH, Helmchen F, Monyer H: 

Spatially segregated feedforward and feedback neurons support differential odor processing in the lateral entorhinal cortex. Nature Neuroscience 2016, 19 (7): 935-944 PDF Link

Fuchs EC*, Neitz A*, Pinna R*, Melzer S, Caputi A, Monyer H: 

Local and distant input controlling excitation in layer II of the medial entorhinal cortex. Neuron 2016, 89 (1): 194-208 Link

Caputi A, Melzer S, Michael M, Monyer H: 

The long and short of GABAergic neurons. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 2013, 23 (2): 179-86 Link

Melzer S*, Michael M*, Caputi A, Eliava M, Fuchs EC, Whittington MA, Monyer H: 

Long-range-projecting GABAergic neurons modulate inhibition in hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. Science 2012, 335 (6075): 1506-1510 PDF Link

*co-first author