Research Priorities: Human medicine, psychiatry, anxiety disorder, depression, stress, genetics, epigenetics

Elisabeth Binder is an Austrian neuroscientist and medical expert. She works in the field of psychiatry, with a focus on researching the molecular, cellular and systemic factors that lead to stress- and trauma-related psychiatric disorders.

Elisabeth Binder is primarily interested in researching the interaction between genetic and environmental risk factors in the development of psychiatric disorders, in particular anxiety disorders and depression. Her working group uses endocrine, molecular-genetic and psychometric methods to shed light on this connection. More precise knowledge about these interactions may allow biologically distinct patient groups to be identified and thus receive more specific and improved treatment.

Her research interests among psychiatric illnesses are stress- and trauma-associated psychiatric disorders. Stress or adverse life events are the biggest risk factors for both depression and anxiety disorders as well as other psychiatric and medical conditions. An improved understanding of both the adaptive and maladaptive molecular, cellular and systemic factors can help to recognise the pathophysiological mechanisms of psychiatric disorders associated with stress and trauma. For this reason, Elisabeth Binder wants to investigate the sequence of molecular, cellular and systemic changes associated with the development of psychiatric symptoms following stress or trauma or with resilience against the development of such disorders.

In addition, she wants to investigate the genetic, environmental and developmental factors which are linked to different sequences and thus influence the risk of suffering from illnesses that can be triggered by stress or trauma.

In biomarker-based studies Elisabeth Binder is also dedicated to developing a new scientific classification for psychiatric illnesses.