Assist.-Prof. Isabella Anderson-Wagner
Assistant Professor, joint professorship with the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science and the Faculty of Psychology
☎ +43 1 4277 47151
✉ isabella.wagner(at)univie.ac.at
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Publications Overview
Isabella’s research group studies the microbiome-brain axis in relation to neural plasticity, learning, and memory. The group integrates neuroimaging techniques (mainly functional magnetic resonance imaging, among others), gut microbial profiling, and behavioural-cognitive assessments to track microbiome-brain interactions in healthy humans and animal models, as well as in conditions of reduced neural plasticity (due to genetic risk for dementia, perturbed neurodevelopment, or stress).
Isabella has a joint professorship with the Faculty of Psychology and the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science. She was awarded the Cortex Prize for her early career achievements in neuroscience by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (2023), received a Veni Grant from the Dutch Research Council (2020), a FWF Principal Investigator Project (2021), a Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behaviour Research Foundation (2024), and was awarded an ERC Starting Grant (2025). She is also part of an FWF-funded Research Group (2023) and the Cluster of Excellence “Microbiomes drive planetary health” (2023).
Research Topics
Gut microbiome-brain interplay for neural plasticity
The fact that the brain is influenced by the microorganisms that make up the gut microbiome substantially widens the scope of how we need to view neural plasticity, cognition and behaviour. Neural plasticity describes the brain’s capacity for reorganisation, and the hippocampus in particular is a brain structure key to learning and memory. A major part of our work is dedicated to understanding the microbial effects on hippocampal function, network topology, and related cognition (ERC Starting Grant “MemoryLane”).
Recent work also demonstrated that fluctuations in the constellation of specific gut microbial networks are associated with the structure and function of brain networks relevant to neural plasticity and flexible cognition (Wagner et al., 2026 — new preprint to be posted asap!). Moreover, we are currently assessing neurotransmitter production in synthetic microbial communities in vitro, and their impact in vivo using a novel line of animal research (FWF Cluster of Excellence “Microbiomes drive planetary health”).
Profiles of altered neural plasticity
The hippocampus and adjacent medial temporal lobe structures are critically implicated in ageing and dementia. Exciting discoveries suggest that gut microbial signalling may contribute to dementia as well — highlighting the microbiome-brain axis as a promising target for preventing or attenuating neurodegenerative disease progression. In several ongoing projects, we focus on the role of the apolipoprotein E e4 allele, which is the strongest known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, and its impact on the gut microbiome and neurocognition (ERC Starting Grant “MemoryLane”, BBRF Young Investigator Grant).
Besides dementia risk, gut microbes may also mediate the (often) detrimental effects of stress on brain function. In a recent paper, we demonstrated that the rise of stress hormones after acute stress (induced with a standardised laboratory measure) depends on one’s gut microbial diversity and inferred capacity to produce short-chain fatty acids (Karner et al., 2025) – microbially-synthesised metabolites that can cross the blood-brain barrier and impact hippocampus-dependent cognition.
Finally, we are interested in the early stages of life. In a currently ongoing project, we are investigating the effects of early gut microbiome-immune perturbation due to extremely premature birth on the development of brain networks and neurocognition in children (FWF Research Group “NeoGIBA”).
Cognitive neuroscience of memory and spatial navigation
Microbiome-brain interactions lie at the heart of our research endeavours, but we have been devoting much time and effort to understanding the basic principles of neurocognition, particularly hippocampus-dependent memory and spatial navigation.
Prior work investigated the neural correlates of episodic memory formation and retrieval (Wagner et al., 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019), the beneficial effect of memory training (Ren et al., 2025; Wagner et al., 2021; Dresler et al., 2017) and exercise (van Dongen et al., 2016) on neurocognition, and the involvement of spatially-tuned cells in the entorhinal cortex that may contribute to our “internal compass”, allowing for successful orientation and navigation through space (Graichen et al., 2025; Wagner et al., 2023 — funded by an FWF Principal Investigator Project).
Group Members
Patrick Adelsberger
Master's Student
Philip Brucker
Student Assistant
Klara Draxlbauer
Master's Student
Ioanna Freri
PhD Student
Luise Graichen
PhD Student
Thomas Karner
PhD Student
Andreja Ketiš Radič
Student Assistant
Lea Schenk
PhD Student
Regina Ori Stöckl
PhD Student
Arianna Turello
Master's Student
Fabian Wehrmann
Master's Student
Publications
Lamm C, Rütgen M, Wagner IC. Imaging empathy and prosocial emotions. Neuroscience Letters. 2019 Feb 6;693:49-53. Epub 2017 Jun 29. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2017.06.054
van Buuren M, Wagner I, Fernández G. Functional network interactions at rest underlie individual differences in memory ability. Learning & Memory. 2019;26(1):9-19. doi: 10.1101/lm.048199.118
Riva F, Tschernegg M, Chiesa PA, Wagner I, Kronbichler M, Lamm C et al. Age-related differences in the neural correlates of empathy for pleasant and unpleasant touch in a female sample. Neurobiology of Aging. 2018 May;65:7-17. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2017.12.028
Wagner I. Efficient memory formation with the method of loci. 2018. International Conference on Learning and Memory, United States.
Dresler M, Shirer WR, Konrad BN, Müller NJ, Wagner IC, Fernández G et al. Mnemonic training reshapes brain networks to support superior memory. Neuron. 2017 Mar 8;93(5):1227-1235.e6. e6. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.02.003
Microbiomes Drive Planetary Health
Isabella Anderson-Wagner is part of the FWF-funded Cluster of Excellence (CoE)
