World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
Christian J. Merz

Christian J. Merz

D-Index & Metrics

Psychology

D-Index
42
Citations
5270
World Ranking
7671
National Ranking
367

Overview

Christian J. Merz is affiliated with Ruhr University Bochum in Germany and has an extensive research background encompassing neuroscience and psychology. Their work spans a diverse range of topics including stress responses, memory mechanisms, and neuroendocrine regulation.

The scientist's recent papers include:

  • Enhancing precision in human neuroscience, 2023, eLife
  • The association between fear extinction, the ability to accomplish exposure and exposure therapy outcome in specific phobia, 2020, Scientific Reports
  • The cerebellum contributes to context-effects during fear extinction learning: A 7T fMRI study, 2022, NeuroImage
  • Hormonal contraceptive usage influences stress hormone effects on cognition and emotion, 2022, Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology
  • Consensus design of a calibration experiment for human fear conditioning, 2023, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

The scientist has collaborated frequently with several coauthors, including:

  • Oliver T. Wolf (39 collaborations)
  • Dagmar Timmann (12 collaborations)
  • Giorgi Batsikadze (11 collaborations)
  • Thomas Ernst (10 collaborations)
  • Erhan Genç (8 collaborations)

Frequent publication venues for their work include:

  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) with 10 publications
  • Psychoneuroendocrinology with 8 publications
  • Scientific Reports with 4 publications
  • Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews with 3 publications
  • Blood with 3 publications

The main fields of study for Christian J. Merz cover:

  • Neuroscience with 97 publications
  • Psychology with 41 publications

Within these fields, subfields of study include:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience (52 publications)
  • Behavioral Neuroscience (28 publications)
  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology (15 publications)
  • Immunology (14 publications)
  • Social Psychology (13 publications)

Core topics represented in their research include:

  • Stress Responses and Cortisol (56 publications)
  • Memory and Neural Mechanisms (54 publications)
  • Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes (18 publications)
  • Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior (14 publications)
  • CAR-T cell therapy research (12 publications)
  • Functional Brain Connectivity Studies (10 publications)
  • Neural dynamics and brain function (10 publications)

Best Publications

  • Don't fear 'fear conditioning': Methodological considerations for the design and analysis of studies on human fear acquisition, extinction, and return of fear

    Tina B. Lonsdorf;Mareike M. Menz;Marta Andreatta;Miguel A. Fullana

  • More than just noise: Inter-individual differences in fear acquisition, extinction and return of fear in humans - Biological, experiential, temperamental factors, and methodological pitfalls.

    Tina B. Lonsdorf;Christian J. Merz

  • Investigating the impact of sex and cortisol on implicit fear conditioning with fMRI.

    Christian J. Merz;Katharina Tabbert;Jan Schweckendiek;Tim Klucken

  • Neuronal correlates of extinction learning are modulated by sex hormones

    Christian J. Merz;Katharina Tabbert;Jan Schweckendiek;Tim Klucken

  • Navigating the garden of forking paths for data exclusions in fear conditioning research

    Tina B Lonsdorf;Maren Klingelhöfer-Jens;Marta Andreatta;Marta Andreatta;Tom Beckers

  • What our eyes tell us about feelings: Tracking pupillary responses during emotion regulation processes.

    Valerie L. Kinner;Lars Kuchinke;Angelika M. Dierolf;Christian J. Merz

  • Sex differences in stress effects on emotional learning

    Christian J. Merz;Oliver T. Wolf

  • Influence of contingency awareness on neural, electrodermal and evaluative responses during fear conditioning

    Katharina Tabbert;Christian J. Merz;Tim Klucken;Jan Schweckendiek

  • Emotional modulation of the attentional blink: the neural structures involved in capturing and holding attention.

    Lars Schwabe;Christian J. Merz;Christian J. Merz;Bertram Walter;Dieter Vaitl

  • Neural Activations of the Acquisition of Conditioned Sexual Arousal: Effects of Contingency Awareness and Sex

    Tim Klucken;Jan Schweckendiek;Christian J. Merz;Christian J. Merz;Katharina Tabbert

  • Oral contraceptive usage alters the effects of cortisol on implicit fear learning.

    Christian Josef Merz;Katharina Tabbert;Jan Schweckendiek;Tim Klucken

  • ADHD related behaviors are associated with brain activation in the reward system

    R. Stark;E. Bauer;C.J. Merz;C.J. Merz;M. Zimmermann

  • Stress differentially affects fear conditioning in men and women

    Christian Josef Merz;Oliver Tobias Wolf;Jan Schweckendiek;Tim Klucken

  • The cerebellum is involved in processing of predictions and prediction errors in a fear conditioning paradigm.

    Thomas Michael Ernst;Anna Evelina Brol;Marcel Gratz;Marcel Gratz;Christoph Ritter

  • Weaving the (neuronal) web: Fear learning in spider phobia

    Jan Schweckendiek;Tim Klucken;Christian J. Merz;Christian J. Merz;Katharina Tabbert

  • Neural correlates of disgust- and fear-conditioned responses

    T. Klucken;J. Schweckendiek;G. Koppe;C.J. Merz

  • Renewal of conditioned fear in a novel context is associated with hippocampal activation and connectivity

    A. Hermann;R. Stark;M. R. Milad;C. J. Merz

  • Effects of Cortisol on Reconsolidation of Reactivated Fear Memories

    Shira Meir Drexler;Christian J Merz;Tanja C Hamacher-Dang;Martin Tegenthoff

  • Fear Extinction Retention: Is It What We Think It Is?

    Tina B. Lonsdorf;Christian J. Merz;Miquel A. Fullana

  • Stress impairs retrieval of socially relevant information.

    Christian J. Merz;Oliver T. Wolf;Jürgen Hennig

  • Cortisol modifies extinction learning of recently acquired fear in men

    Christian Josef Merz;Andrea Hermann;Rudolf Stark;Oliver Tobias Wolf

  • Making translation work: Harmonizing cross-species methodology in the behavioural neuroscience of Pavlovian fear conditioning

    Jan Haaker;Stephen Maren;Marta Andreatta;Marta Andreatta;Christian J. Merz

Frequent Co-Authors

Oliver T. Wolf
Oliver T. Wolf Ruhr University Bochum
Rudolf Stark
Rudolf Stark University of Giessen
Dieter Vaitl
Dieter Vaitl University of Giessen
Bertram Walter
Bertram Walter University of Giessen
Jürgen Margraf
Jürgen Margraf Ruhr University Bochum
Miquel A. Fullana
Miquel A. Fullana Clínic Barcelona
Silvia Schneider
Silvia Schneider Ruhr University Bochum
Juergen Hennig
Juergen Hennig University of Giessen
Tom Beckers
Tom Beckers KU Leuven
Lars Schwabe
Lars Schwabe Universität Hamburg

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