Göttingen Graduate Center for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences

Moser, Tobias, Prof. Dr.

Professor of Auditory Neuroscience


  • 1995 M.D. University of Jena
  • 1994 - 1997 Postdoc with E. Neher at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry
  • 1997-2001 Junior Group Leader at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen
  • since 2001 Leader of the InnerEarLab and Clinical Work at the Department of Otolaryngology, University Medical Center Göttingen
  • since 2014 Group leader at the Max Planck Institutes for Experimental Medicine and Biophysical Chemistry (now Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences)
  • since 2014 Group leader at the German Primate Center (DPZ)
  • since 2015 Director of the Institute for Auditory Neuroscience, University Medical Center Göttingen
  • since 2019 Spokesperson of the Multiscale BioImaging Cluster of Excellence (MBExC)
  • since 2024 Spokesperson of the Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Optogenetic Therapies



Major Research Interests

Auditory Neuroscience - Synaptic Physiology and Pathophysiology - Audiology and Neuroprosthetics

Our work focuses on the molecular anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology of sound encoding and information processing in the auditory system as well as the restoration of hearing by gene replacement therapy and optogenetic stimulation. We combine various techniques to characterize synapses of hair cells and the auditory brainstem from the molecular to the systems level. This way we have contributed to the understanding of structure and function of auditory synapses and initiated the concept of auditory synaptopathy. Towards restoration of hearing we aim to establish virus-mediated gene replacement therapy of auditory synaptopathy and pursue the optogenetic stimulation of auditory nerve for improving the performance of the cochlear implant.

Homepage Department/Research Group

http://www.auditory-neuroscience.uni-goettingen.de/
http://www.innerearlab.uni-goettingen.de/
https://www.dpz.eu/de/abteilung/auditorische-neurowissenschaften-und-optogenetik/ueber-uns.html
https://www.mpinat.mpg.de/moser
https://mbexc.de/
https://ekfz.uni-goettingen.de/

Selected Recent Publications


  • Karagulyan N, Thirumalai A, Michanski S, Qi Y, Fang Q, Wang H, Ortner NJ, Striessnig J, Strenzke N, Wichmann C, Hua Y, Moser T (2025) Gating of hair cell Ca2+ channels governs the activity of cochlear neurons. Sci Adv 11(25): eadu7898, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adu7898
  • Alekseev A, Hunniford V, Zerche M, Jeschke M, May FE, Vavakou A, Siegenthaler D, Hüser MA, Kiehn SM, Garrido-Charles A, Meyer A, Rambousky A, Alvanos T, Witzke I, Rojas-Garcia K, Draband M, Cyganek L, Klein E, Ruther P, Huet A, Trenholm S, Macé E, Kusch K, Bruegmann T, Wolf B, Mager T, Moser T (2025) Efficient and sustained optogenetic control of nervous and cardiac systems. Nat Biomed Eng (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01461-1
  • Jaime Tobón LM*, Moser T* (2024) Bridging the gap between presynaptic hair cell function and neural sound encoding. Elife. 2024 Dec 24;12:RP93749. doi: 10.7554/eLife.93749
  • Grabner CP, Jansen I, Neef J, Weihs T, Schmidt R, Riedel D, Wurm CA, Moser T*. (2022) Resolving the molecular architecture of the photoreceptor active zone with 3D-MINFLUX. Sci Adv, 8(28):eabl7560. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abl7560 (Open Access).
  • Özcete Ö, Moser T*. (2021) A sensory cell diversifies its output by varying Ca2+ influx-release coupling among presynaptic active zones for wide range intensity coding. EMBO J. e106010. doi: 10.15252/embj.2020106010 (Open Access).
  • Dieter A, Duque Afonso CJ, Rankovic V, Jeschke M, Moser T* (2019) Near physiological spectral selectivity of cochlear optogenetics. Nat Commun. 10, 1962. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09980-7 (Open Access).
  • Neef J, Ohn TL, et int., Moser T*. (2018) Quantitative optical nanophysiology of Ca2+-signaling at inner hair cell active zones. Nat Commun. 9(1): 290. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-02612-y (Open Access)
  • Hernandez VH, Gehrt A, et int., Moser T* (2014) Optogenetic stimulation of the auditory pathway. J Clin Invest 124(3): 1114-29. doi: 10.1172/JCI69050
  • Pangrsic T, Lasarow L, et int., Moser T*. (2010) Hearing requires otoferlin-dependent efficient replenishment of synaptic vesicles in hair cells. Nat Neurosci. 13, 869-76. doi:10.1038/nn.2578
  • Khimich D, Nouvian R, Pujol R, tom Dieck S, Egner A, Gundelfinger ED, Moser T* (2005) Hair Cell Synaptic Ribbons are Essential for Synchronous Auditory Signaling. Nature. 434, 889- 94. doi: 10.1038/nature03418.