From neurodevelopment to neurodevelopmental disorders: glutamatergic networks in
health and disease
Dawitz, J.
2015
document version
Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record
Link to publication in VU Research Portal
citation for published version (APA)
Dawitz, J. (2015). From neurodevelopment to neurodevelopmental disorders: glutamatergic networks in health
and disease.
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190 Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
While writing this thesis I was supposed to explain what I did and what I hypothesized dur-ing the last years. That felt strange. After all dodur-ing a PhD is nothdur-ing I did alone. There have been many people directly and indirectly involved in making this book possible. Without you guys this work would have been impossible (and boring, and even more frustrating than it was in times, much less fun and very lonely). I want to thank you for all the patience, good humor, advice, help, fun… . Obviously, there are a couple of people especially important for making this book possible:
First of all and certainly key to this book: Rhi. You took me into your lab to join your group. You gave me all the freedom to develop my own little project and were never tired of brainstorming about new hypotheses (is there even one we started out with that turned out correct?) and new ways to explain the data. I appreciate a lot that there was almost no time when your door wasn’t open to drop by and discuss anything that had come up.
Huib, thank you for being my promoter and having me in your lab.
The members of my reading committee: Iliana Hanganu-Opatz, Nael Nadif Kasri, Elenora Aronica, Christian Lohman, and Rogier Min. Thank you for reading and evaluating my thesis.
Diana, my paranymph: For the last years you always had advice for me scientifically and personally… and we had lots of fun. Without you I wouldn’t be where I am now. With you I have this home feeling!
Ioannis, my paranymph: Together we (almost) make one whole scientist! It has been fun and it was an honor. It was great that you joined the group, I learned a lot from you and I am looking forward to visit your own lab sometime in the future.
Tim, je kwam op een moment dat mijzelf niets lukte. Je verzamelde data, hele goede data, en gaf me weer hoop dat het mij toch zou lukken met dat promoveren. Uiteindelijk werd je ons nieuwe collega en zonder jou zijn we niet meer compleet, maar je bent ook een vriend geworden. Dank voor je werk, dank voor je vriendschap, dank voor de motivatiehulp om na Pilates te gaan en bijzonder dank voor het mooie cover van mijn proefschrift!
Johannes, working with you was always special. Thank you for all the coding. I like the paper it became.
Margy, my office mate, and Martha, my office and flat mate. Girls, without you life at the VU (and at home) would have been much less fun. Martha, I miss you as a flatmate. Judit and Nandu, as my master students you also contributed to my thesis work. Valery, you were not directly my student but added important bits to our latest paper. Thank you all for your time and enthusiasm.
There have been countless other people in the lab that I could share ideas with and that helped me out in every possible way: Jasper, Amber, Thijs, Tim, Zimbo, Hans, Jaap, Rogier, Brendan and everyone else that slipped my mind.
Julia und Torben, mit euch zu promovieren macht den Tag noch besonderer! Ich freu mich, zusammen mit meinen Kaffeefreunden promovieren zu können. Wat hätt ich nur ohne euch gemacht?
A promotion is impossible without a good scientific basis. Bruce Jenks, you sparked my interest in neuroscience and supported my application for the research master. I still feed on your lectures – the best lecture series I ever attended.
Menno, jij hebt me voor mijn masterstage aangenomen in jouw nieuwe groep in Trondheim. Jij hebt me enthousiast gemaakt voor de entorhinale schors en de hippocampus, de hersen-gebieden waar ook deze proefschrift om draait.
Jay, you taught me to patch and introduced me into the secrets of electrophysiology. Thank you for teaching me so much.
Noriko, the time in the basement was so much nicer having you around! But I also learned a lot from you. Stor klem!
Toen ik in 2004 naar Nijmegen kwam sprak ik weinig Nederlands en was de helft van de tijd mijn weg kwijt. Rob, jij hebt veel tijd geïnvesteerd om mij te helpen – zonder jou waren de eersten maanden zeker niet gelukt. Maar ook iedereen uit de mentor groep: Bedankt dat jullie er waren/zijn. Het is altijd gezellig met jullie.
192 Acknowledgements
Anna-Ma und Hannah, meine zwei Lieblingsschwestern, ich kann mich immer auf euch verlassen und zusammen sind wir ein unschlagbares Team. Mit euch machen Konzerte und alles andere doppelt so viel Spaß. Schön, dass es euch gibt. Anna-Ma danke für das Layout, alleine wäre ich verrückt geworden!
Mama und Papa, von euch habe ich alles wirklich Wichtige gelernt, ohne euch wäre diese Doktorarbeit nicht möglich gewesen. Danke für alles was ihr mir beigebracht habt, danke für die Freiheit, die ihr mir gegeben habt um mich zu entwickeln und danke, dass ihr immer da seid.
194 About the author
About the author
Julia Dawitz was born on 23rd of February 1985 in Recklinghausen, Germany. She finished
List of publications
Included in this thesis
Dawitz, J., Kroon, T., Hjorth, J.J., and Meredith, R.M. (2011). Functional calcium imaging in developing
cortical networks. Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE.
Hjorth, J.J.*, Dawitz, J.*, Kroon, T., Pires, J., Dassen, V.J., Berkhout, J.A., Emperador Melero, J., Nadad-hur, A.G., Alevra, M., Toonen, R.F., et al. (2015). Detection of silent cells, synchronization and
modula-tory activity in developing cellular networks. Developmental neurobiology.
*These authors contributed equally to this work.
Excerpts included in this thesis
Meredith, R.M., Dawitz, J., and Kramvis, I. (2012). Sensitive time-windows for susceptibility in
neurode-velopmental disorders. Trends in neurosciences 35, 335-344.
Not included in this thesis
La Fata, G., Gartner, A., Dominguez-Iturza, N., Dresselaers, T., Dawitz, J., Poorthuis, R.B., Averna, M., Himmelreich, U., Meredith, R.M., Achsel, T., et al. (2014). FMRP regulates multipolar to bipolar transition
