Laura Lückemann

• Dr.rer. nat.
• PostDoc Position at University Hospital Essen

Objective Patients with chronic inflammatory autoimmune diseases benefit from a broad spectrum of immunosuppressive and antiproliferative medication available today. However, nearly all of these therapeutic compounds have unwanted toxic side effects. Recent knowledge about the neurobiology of placebo responses indicates that associative learning pr...

Immunological responses can be modulated by taste-immune associative learning paradigms, in which the presentation of a sweet taste as conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with the injection of an immunopharmacological substance as unconditioned stimulus (US). This phenomenon provides a basis for employing conditioning paradigms as supportive therap...

Background Studies in experimental animals revealed that acute and chronic treatment with small‐molecule immunosuppressive drugs lead to neurobehavioral alterations in rodents. Methods Against this background, this study investigated behavioral alterations in rats after repeated administration of FTY720, an immunosuppressive drug used for the trea...

The brain and immune system communicate through complex bidirectional pathways, but the specificity by which the brain perceives or even remembers alterations in immune homeostasis is still poorly understood. Recent data revealed that immune-related information under peripheral inflammatory conditions, termed as “immunengram”, were represented in s...

Suppression of immune functions can be elicited by behavioural conditioning using drugs such as cyclosporin A or rapamycin. Nevertheless, little is known about the underlying mechanisms and generalisability of this phenomenon. Against this background, the present study investigated whether the pharmacological properties of fingolimod (FTY720), an i...

The brain and the immune system permanently exchange information via various neuronal and humoral signaling pathways. This communication network forms the basis for controlling peripheral immune functions via associative learning or conditioning processes. Establishing a learned immune reaction, an immunomodulatory drug that represents the uncondit...

The pharmacological effects of an immunosuppressive drug, such as cyclosporine A (CsA), can be learned and retrieved by humans and animals when applying associative learning paradigms. This principle is based on Pavlovian conditioning, in which repeated presentation of an “unconditioned stimulus” (US; here, the drug CsA) is paired with exposure to...

Mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR)-signaling is one key driver of glioblastoma (GBM), facilitating tumor growth by promoting the shift to an anti-inflammatory, pro-cancerogenic microenvironment. Even though mTOR inhibitors such as rapamycin (RAPA) have been shown to interfere with GBM disease progression, frequently chaperoned toxic drug side e...

Rationale Calcineurin is a protein regulating cytokine expression in T lymphocytes and calcineurin inhibitors such as cyclosporine A (CsA) are widely used for immunosuppressive therapy. It also plays a functional role in distinct neuronal processes in the central nervous system. Disturbed information processing as seen in neuropsychiatric disorders...

Background: Chronic stress has become a central problem of our modern society. It appears plausible that our Paleolithic ancestors were more exposed to acutely life-threatening stress stimuli than chronically enduring psychosocial stressors. The aim of this study was to test whether it is possible to reduce physiological and psychological stress pa...

Background Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis is of significant clinical importance for the diagnosis of diseases. In humans, CSF is easily accessible and can be collected using minimally invasive methods. However, obtaining uncontaminated CSF from rats is still challenging. New Method This study described a microsurgical technique for sampling la...

Up to seventy-five percent of patients treated for cancer suffer from cognitive deficits which can persist for months to decades, severely impairing quality of life. Although the number of cancer survivors is increasing tremendously, no efficacious interventions exist. Cisplatin, most commonly employed for solid tumors, leads to cognitive impairmen...

Psychiatric symptoms as seen in affective and anxiety disorders frequently appear during glioblastoma (GBM) treatment and disease progression, additionally deteriorate patient's daily life routine. These central comorbidi-ties are difficult to recognize and the causes for these effects are unknown. Since overactivation of mechanistic target of rapa...

Experimental studies in rodents and humans have convincingly demonstrated that immune functions can be modulated by associative learning processes. We have established a conditioned taste avoidance (CTA) paradigm in rats by pairing a novel taste (conditioned stimulus, CS) with an injection of the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA; uncondit...

The learned placebo response of the immune system is based on the mutual interaction between the brain and the immune system; both systems continually exchange information via humoral and neural communication pathways. This communication network enables the modification, i.e. suppression or stimulation, of peripheral immune functions by classical o...

Behaviorally conditioned taste avoidance (CTA) paradigms using the novel taste saccharin as a conditioned stimulus (CS) and the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA) as unconditioned stimulus (US) demonstrate learned suppression of immune functions. However, conditioned immune responses might decrease over time depending on the period between...

The phenomenon of behaviorally conditioned immunological and neuroendocrine responses has been investigated for the past 100 years. The observation that peripheral immune functions can be modified by associative learning processes was first reported and investigated by Ivan Petrovic Pavlov and his co-workers. Their work later fell into oblivion, al...

The present study aimed to compare linear and symbolic dynamics (SD) indices for detecting the autonomic cardiac changes produced by endotoxemia in freely-moving rats. In this context, we analyzed ECG-derived R-R time series in freely moving Dark Agouti rats, which received lipopolysaccharide (LPS, n = 9), or vehicle (V, n = 7). Five minutes R-R ti...

Suppression of immune functions can be elicited by behavioral conditioning using drugs such as cyclosporine A, cyclophosphamide, or opioids. Nevertheless, little is known regarding the conditioned actions of clinically approved immunosuppressive drugs with distinct cell signaling pathways. The present study tested the assumption to condition immuno...

Neuropsychiatric comorbidities, such as depression or anxiety, are frequently seen in glioblastoma (GBM)-patients restricting their quality of life. mTOR signaling has been implicated in the development of certain neurological disorders and is also a key driver for GBM tumor progression. Against this background, the present study analyzed effects o...

In a rat model of conditioned immunosuppression a novel taste (saccharin) as conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an injection of the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA) as unconditioned stimulus (US). Representation of the CS alone at a later time induces conditioned taste avoidance (CTA) towards the saccharin and concomitantly a marke...

Background Clinical data indicate that therapy with small-molecule immunosuppressive drugs is frequently accompanied by an incidence rate of neuropsychiatric symptoms. In the current approach, we investigated in rats whether repeated administration of rapamycin (RAPA), reflecting clinical conditions of patients undergoing therapy with this mTOR inh...

The importance of placebo responses for the treatment of various medical conditions has increasingly been recognized, whereas knowledge and systematic application in clinical settings are still sparse. One possible application for placebo responses in pharmacotherapy is given by learning paradigms, such as behaviorally conditioned immunosuppression...

Background: Recent findings concerning oxytocin indicate its anti-inflammatory, cardioprotective and parasympathetic modulating properties. In this study, we investigated the effects of systemically applied oxytocin on the cardiorespiratory activity in a rodent model of moderate endotoxemia. Methods: Telemetrically recorded electrocardiogram (EC...

In an established paradigm of taste-immune conditioning in the rat, the novel taste saccharine (conditioned stimulus/CS) is combined with an i.p. injection of the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA; unconditioned stimulus/US). With this paradigm we analyzed in two experimental settings conditioned immunosuppressive effects on collagen type...

In our established model of behaviorally conditioned immunosuppression in rats, a novel taste (saccharin) as conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA) as unconditioned stimulus (US). By re-presenting the CS during retrieval, rats avoid drinking the saccharin (conditioned taste aversion; CTA) and concom...

We established a model of behaviorally conditioned immunosuppression using a conditioned taste aversion (CTA) paradigm in rats, pairing a novel taste (saccharin) as a conditioned stimulus (CS) with the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA) as unconditioned stimulus (US). By re-presenting the CS during retrieval, rats avoid drinking the saccha...

In conditioned taste aversion (CTA) rats associate a novel taste (conditioned stimulus; CS) with a treatment (unconditioned stimulus; US) that induces symptoms of malaise. During retrieval, animals learn that the CS no longer predicts the US, with the consequence that the behavior elicited by the CS extinguishes. Importantly, CTA data with lithium...

Perinatal asphyxia to the developing brain remains a major cause of morbidity. Hypothermia is currently the only established neuroprotective treatment available for term born infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, saving one in seven to eight infants from developing severe neurological deficits. Therefore, additional treatments with clinical...

When memories are recalled, they enter a transient labile phase in which they can be impaired or enhanced followed by a new stabilization process termed reconsolidation. It is unknown, however, whether reconsolidation is restricted to neurocognitive processes such as fear memories or can be extended to peripheral physiological functions as well. He...

We established a model of behaviorally conditioned immunosuppression employing a conditioned taste aversion (CTA) paradigm in rats, pairing a novel taste (saccharin) as a conditioned stimulus (CS) with the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A (CsA) as unconditioned stimulus (US). By re-presenting the CS during evocation, rats avoid drinking the sa...

When memories are recalled, they enter a transient labile phase in which they can be impaired or enhanced followed by a new stabilization process termed reconsolidation. It is unknown, however, whether reconsolidation is restricted to neurocognitive processes such as fear memories or can be extended to peripheral physiological functions as well. Bi...

In order to analyze the effects of pre-exposure to either the unconditioned (US) or conditioned stimulus (CS) on learned immunosuppression, we employed an established conditioned taste aversion (CTA) paradigm in rats. In our model, a sweet-tasting drinking solution (saccharin) serves as CS and injection of the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A...