Prof. Dr. Denis Burdakov

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. His research lab at ETH works across the areas of systems physiology, psychology, and neuroscience, focussing on 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 research acheivements:

Tesmer AL, Li X, Bracey E, Schmandt C, Polania R, Peleg-Raibstein D, Burdakov D (2024) Orexin neurons mediate temptation-resistant voluntary exercise. Nature Neuroscience, 27: 1774-1782

Viskaitis P, Tesmer AL, Liu Z, Karnani MM, Arnold M, Donegan D, Bracey E, Grujic N, Patriarchi T, Peleg-Raibstein D, Burdakov D (2024) Orexin neurons track temporal features of blood glucose in behaving mice. Nature Neuroscience, 27: 1299-1308

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: 1249

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.

Li H-T, Donegan D, Peleg-Raibstein D, Burdakov D (2022) Hypothalamic deep brain stimulation as a strategy to manage anxiety disorders. PNAS,119(16): 1-9

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: 1-10

Concetti C, Peleg-Raibstein D, Burdakov D (2020) Control of fear extinction by hypothalamic MCH neurons. PNAS, 117(36): 22514-22521

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: 101771

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

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

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

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,7: 11395

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

Schöne C, Apergis-Schoute J, Sakurai T, Adamantidis A, Burdakov D (2014) Co-released orexin and glutamate evoked non-redundant spike outputs and computations in histamine neurons. Cell Reports, 7: 697-704

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): 616-629

Williams RH, Alexopoulos H, Jensen LT, Fugger L, Burdakov D (2008) Adaptive sugar sensors in hypothalamic feeding circuits. PNAS, 105(33): 11975-11980

Gonzalez JA, Jensen LT, Fugger L, Burdakov (2008) Metabolism-independent sugar sensing in central orexin neurons. Diabetes 57(10): 2569-2576

Williams RH, Jensen LT, Vekhratsky A, Fugger L, Burdakov D (2007) Control of hypothalamic orexin neurons by acid and CO2. PNAS, 104(25): 10685-10690