Prof. dr. Alexei Verkhratsky

Professor Alexei Verkhratsky, is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of cellular neurophysiology, best known for his contributions to our knowledge of the physiology and pathophysiology of neuroglia. He was one of the first to discover the specific expression of neurotransmitter receptors in astrocytes and their activation in situ by physiological stimulation. He demonstrated (with H. Kettenmann) matching patterns of neuronal and glial receptors, thus providing the basis for the concept of active and reciprocal neuronal-glial communications. He demonstrated that these receptors are connected to calcium-mediated signalling cascades, which led to the important concept of glial calcium excitability. Subsequently he developed the concept of sodium ions as a specific signalling molecule controlling local homeostatic responses of astrocytes; recently he extended ionic signalling in neuroglia to chloride. He performed the first in death studies of neuroglia in the ageing brain. Verkhratsky also pioneered the emerging field of neurogliopathology, having characterised astroglial asthenia and paralysis as key pathophysiological event in psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. In a series of highly cited conceptual papers he outlined basic principles of glial physiology and pathophysiology, which significantly influenced this rapidly developing area of neuroscience.

Scientometry: Prof Verkhratsky authored 9 and edited 12 books; he published ~ 600 papers and chapters. His papers were cited >46500 times, H-index 108 (Scopus, 2025).

Highly cited Wos (Clarivite) Researcher 2022, 2023, 2024
Listed in the 100000 Top Scientists in the world (Stanford ranking) since 2019; https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/

Web pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Verkhratsky

https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=SURsyOIAAAAJ&hl=en