neuropharmacology

neurosciences

pharmacology

Ilse Smolders (PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences,  full professor, ‘gewoon hoogleraar’) is attached to the VUB Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy. Being a Pharmacist, she has huge interest in pharmacology and drug discovery, and her main teaching duties are situated within that field of expertise. She is responsible for teaching courses to Medical, Biomedical, Pharmacy and Psychology students.  She is head of the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Drug Analysis and Drug Information, and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The research expertise of Ilse Smolders lies in the domain of neuroscience and pharmacology. She has expertise with rodent models of seizures, epilepsy, and epilepsy co-morbidities such as cognitive decline, anxiety and depression, as well as with in vivo monitoring of neurotransmitters, gliotransmitters and neuropeptides, ex vivo analysis of rodent brain, slice electrophysiology, and more recently, in vitro culture models. Available techniques in the lab are telemetry-based 24h-electroencephalographic (EEG) monitoring for rodents, and a wide range of behavioral paradigms for measuring epilepsy-related behavior, cognitive decline, locomotor, anxiety and depressive-like behaviors in rodents. In vivo microdialysis in rodents is used, and miniaturized analytical developments for targeted analysis of the dialysates are always ongoing and optimised. Novel state-of-the art technologies such as chemogenetics, optogenetics and untargeted metabolomics were recently introduced in the team.