Professor Rafał Ryguła, PhD

Prof. Dr. Hab. Rafał Ryguła began his adventure with science in 1999 when he became a volunteer in the Department of Biochemistry at the Institute of Pharmacology Polish Academy of Sciences (IF-PAN). Based on the research conducted at that time, he obtained a Master's degree in Biology in 2001 at the Jagiellonian University and then went on to a several-month research scholarship at the Rudolf Magnus Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands. After returning from the Netherlands, he obtained another research scholarship and began his PhD studies in Developmental Neurobiology at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, which he resigned from after a few months to undertake doctoral studies at the Georg August University in Göttingen, Germany. His scientific work in Göttingen, conducted in cooperation between the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Georg August University and the Clinical Neurobiology Laboratory at the German Primate Center, resulted in the development of a new preclinical model of depression based on the procedure of chronic psychosocial stress and a series of original publications. In 2006, Prof. Ryguła defended his doctoral thesis entitled "Behavioural and Pharmacological Validation of Chronic Social Stress as a Model of Depression in Rats" at the Georg August University in Göttingen. This work represents a critical summary of the concept, application, and verification of procedures of chronic psychosocial stress in the preclinical modeling of depression.

After defending his doctoral thesis, Prof. Ryguła conducted research as a volunteer in the Department of Behavioral Neurobiology at IF-PAN for six months, and since 2007 he has been working as a postdoc researcher at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Göttingen. From 2008 to 2011, he continued his postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, UK, where he studied the neuroanatomical and neurochemical basis of cognitive flexibility and feedback sensitivity in primates.

In 2011, a grant obtained under the Homing Plus program of the Foundation for Polish Science allowed Prof. Ryguła to return to Poland and continue and expand his previously conducted research at the IF-PAN, using rat models. In 2013, Prof. Ryguła became the head of the newly established Affective Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, which is focused on multi-level (behavioral, psychological, pharmacological, and neurochemical) studies of key neurocognitive correlates and markers of affective disorders and cognitive biases in animal models. In 2015, Prof. Ryguła obtained his habilitation degree in medical sciences (specialization in medical biology), and in 2016, his work, which served as the basis for obtaining the habilitation degree, was awarded the Prime Minister's Award. Since 2022, Prof. Ryguła has been a professor at the Institute of Biochemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and in January 2023, he was awarded the title of professor by the President of the Republic of Poland based on the recommendation of the Scientific Excellence Council.

Professor Ryguła's research interests focus on behavioral neurobiology, experimental psychology, and psychopharmacology. In his research work, he focuses on studying neurocognitive endophenotypes of complex mental disorders, including depression and addiction, using sophisticated behavioral methods in preclinical animal models and, more recently, in humans.

Prof. Ryguła has been the principal investigator of 8 research grants, including 5 financed by the National Science Centre (1 x Sonata BIS, 4 x OPUS), 1 financed by Norwegian funds (Idealab), 1 by the Foundation for Polish Science (Homing plus), and 1 by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Juventus plus). He has also led 4 grants for science popularization, including 2 awarded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Excellent Science) and 2 awarded by DANA-FENS (BAW).

He has supervised 3 PhD dissertations (1 completed, 2 in progress) and 3 master's theses defended at the Jagiellonian University. He has also served as a reviewer in three doctoral and one habilitation procedures. He has been a lecturer in the courses "Current advances in neurobiology" conducted from 2019 to 2022 for the Neurobiology program at the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences of the Jagiellonian University and "How to check if my rat has depression: the latest animal models and behavioral techniques used in preclinical studies of cognitive dysfunctions accompanying mental disorders," conducted in 2021 and 2022 for the Krakow Interdisciplinary Doctoral School.

Professor Ryguła is a regular reviewer of grant applications for agencies that provide funding for scientific research, including The Medical Research Council (MRC), the Leverhulme Trust, the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), the National Science Centre (NCN), the National Centre for Research and Development, the National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA), the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, and the Research Council of Lithuania. In 2019, he was a member of the advisory team to the Minister of Science and Higher Education for the evaluation of scientific journals and reviewed materials from international conferences. He also serves as an editor for the BMC Neuroscience, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, and Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience journals. He is a member of many scientific societies, including the Psychonomic Society, the Club of Scholarship Holders of the Foundation for Polish Science, the Polish Society for Neuroscience, Cambridge Neuroscience, and the European Behavioral Pharmacology Society.

He actively engages in popularizing science and scientific research. He was the organizer and director of science popularization projects such as the Neurobiological Bus (2018) and the Neurobiological Ship (twice in 2019 and 2021) and the organizer and director of the international scientific conference Workshop: Cognitive-affective biases: from mechanisms to disease symptoms (twice in 2019 and 2022). He also lectured during the "Brain Week" in Krakow and Torun, as well as at the University of the Third Age in Andrychow.

His research results have been covered by publications in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.