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Dominique de Quervain (born December 8, 1968) is a Swiss neuroscientist. He is a professor of neuroscience and director of the Division of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He is particularly interested in the effects of glucocorticoids on human memory, phobias, and PTSD.

Career
After receiving his PHD from University of Bern in 1998, Quervain has worked at University of California Irvine, University Psychiatric Clinic Basel, and University of Zürich. Since 2009, he has worked at the University of Basel where he currently serves as Director of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Glucocorticoids & Memory
Quervain's work with glucocorticoids, mainly cortisol, and memory dates back to 1998 after he found that glucocorticoids cause an impairment in memory retrieval in animals. He has since applied his findings about glucocorticoids to fear memory related to phobias, PTSD, and addiction memory. Memory retrieval, especially retrieval of traumatic memories, is impaired when patients are given doses of cortisol. Cortisol enhances memory consolidation when moving emotional memories to long term memory and impairs memory retrieval. In phobia patients, cortisol can be administered before a fearful stimuli is presented, halting the retrieval of fear memories. If this procedure is repeated over time, the fear memory eventually ceases to exist.

Phobias
Glucocorticoids decrease stress in patients with phobias. When given a dosage of cortisol, patients with social phobia showed reduced stress when given a social stress test. Patients with spider phobia showed less aversion to spider photographs when given cortisol versus a placebo. This fear reduction was also observed in patients with fear of heights. In a study exposing people a virtual simulation of heights, Quervain found a 60% drop in fear if people were given cortisol beforehand. By reducing the retrieval of traumatic or fearful memories, glucocorticoids can eventually cause these fearful memories to become extinct. Glucocorticoids, however, have not been found to reduce general fear or anxiety in otherwise healthy people..

PTSD
When cortisol was given to PTSD patients, they reported fewer recollections of traumatic memories and symptoms related to PTSD such as flashbacks or night terrors. Even after the cortisol doses ended, occurrence of recollections and night terrors remained low showing that cortisol seemingly ceased the reconsolidation process that keeps traumatic memories vivid. When combined with behavioral therapy, cortisol shows great promise in treating PTSD.

Addiction
Extinction memory via glucocorticoids is also useful in cases of substance abuse. When given cortisol, heroin addicts reported reduced cravings and desire to use heroin. Over time, the cortisol helps remove addiction memory and cravings. Cravings remained low or nonexistant even after cortisol dosages ceased.

Genetics of Memory
Memory-enhancement of emotional events depend on noradrenergic transmission. Genetically, some people are more likely to recall emotional or traumatic events; they have more amygdala activation when exposed to emotional stimulus among other things. Using genome mapping, Quervain has found that the receptor HRH1 can be targeted with drugs to hamper memory. When HRH1 was targeted with drugs, a single administration of the drug decreased recall of traumatic memories but had no effect on neutral or positive memories. This information can be used to create medications to enhance memory recall or reduce the retrieval traumatic memories in PTSD patients. Quervain has also found a link between genetic levels of glucocorticoids and risk for developing Alzheimer's. Those with abnormalities on HSD11B1 showed increased risk for Alzheimer's.

Awards
In 2006 Dominique de Quervain received the Pfizer-Prize in Neuroscience, in 2007 the Robert-Bing Prize of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, and in 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. He, along with Andreas Papassotiropoulos, was awarded the Cloëtta Prize in 2013.