PD Dr. med. Robert Waltereit

Robert Waltereit is medical director and chief physician of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, LWL-Klinikum Marsberg, Germany. He has a second appointment as a scientist at University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany. He studied medicine at University of Hamburg and did research on animal models of learning and memory, autism and schizophrenia at the Center for Molecular Neurobiology Hamburg, Hertie Institute of Clinical Brain Research Tübingen and Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, Germany. He was clinically trained in Psychiatry and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

Since 2002, he has been working on the neurobiological phenotype the Tsc2+/- (Eker)-rat model of Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC). He has characterised the neurobiological and behavioural phenotype of the mutant rat strain, which is an animal model of TAND, especially of the cluster of autistic behaviours. In the Tsc2+/- (Eker)-rat model, he studied the effects of the mutation and of experimentally induced developmental status epilepticus, which is used to model early epilepsy in TSC. He described an effect of both factors in deficient social behaviours. Currently, he investigates the impact of mTOR inhibitors on social behaviour in the Tsc2+/- (Eker)-rat. He is since 2005 scientific advisor of the German TSC patients association, TS Deutschland.

Recently, he expanded his TSC research interests on interdisciplinary and psychiatric care of TAND in patients. He did lead the translation of the TAND checklist into German and works on the improvement of collaboration and anti-stigma work among professional healthcare providers. Within the TAND consortium, he focuses on the overactive/impulsive cluster.