Research Topics
- Neurobiological foundations of fear and memory extinction
- Sleep and fear memory
- Neurobiological foundations of neuroticism and anxiety
- Brain-heart coupling
Education
08/2022
Post-doctoral researcher in the research group differential psychology and personality research, Philipps University Marburg
2016-2022
Researcher in the field of general psychology and biological psychology with promotion to Dr. rer. nat (summa cum laude), University of Osnabrück
2010-2013
B.Sc. Psychology, Justus-Liebig-University Gießen
Publications
Chuang, L.-C., Augustat, N., Bierwirth, P., Pizzagalli, D., Lees, T., & Mueller, E. M. (2025). Individual differences in dopamine-related traits influence mood effects of dopamine D2-antagonist and antidepressant treatment expectations. /International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology/. (Advance online publication.)
Gerpheide, K., Bierwirth, P., Unterschemmann, S.-L., Panitz, C., Gross, J. J., & Mueller, E. M. (2025). Event-related potentials, heart period, and brain–heart responses during a threat of shock oddball task: Replicability and 6-month reliability. Biological Psychology, Article 109040. (Advance online publication.)
Gerpheide, K., Unterschemmann, S.-L., Panitz, C., Bierwirth, P., Gross, J. J., & Mueller, E. M. (2024). Unpredictable threat increases early event-related potential amplitudes and cardiac acceleration: A brain–heart coupling study. Psychophysiology, 61(7), e14563.
Bierwirth, P., Antov, M. I., & Stockhorst, U. (2023). Oscillatory and non-oscillatory brain activity reflects fear expression in an immediate and delayed fear extinction task. Psychophysiology, 60(8), e14283.
Plog, E., Antov, M. I., Bierwirth, P, & Stockhorst, U. (2023). Effects of phase synchronization and frequency specificity in the encoding of conditioned fear: A web-based fear conditioning study. PLOS ONE, 18(3), e0281644.
Bierwirth P, Stockhorst U. Role of noradrenergic arousal for fear extinction processes in rodents and humans. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. 2022 Oct; 194:107660. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2022.107660.
Plog, E., Antov, M. I., Bierwirth, P., Keil, A., and Stockhorst, U. (2022). Phase-synchronized stimulus presentation augments contingency knowledge and affective evaluation in a fear-conditioning task. eNeuro, 9(1)
Bierwirth, P., Sperl, M. F. J., Antov, M. I., and Stockhorst, U. (2021). Prefrontal theta oscillations are modulated by estradiol status during fear recall and extinction recall. Biological psychiatry.Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, 6(11):1071–1080
Antov, M. I., Plog, E., Bierwirth, P., Keil, A., and Stockhorst, U. (2020). Visuocortical tuning to a threat-related feature persists after extinction and consolidation of conditioned fear. Scientificreports, 10(1):3926
