Sajikumar Sreedharan
Associate Professor, Department of Physiology
Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Tel: 6516 5886
Email: phssks@nus.edu.sg

What are your present research interests or distinctive viewpoint to your research?

Research in my lab is aimed at understanding the cellular and molecular basis of learning and memory.

Our primary research interests are:

• Neural basis of long-term memory (LTM).
• Synaptic tagging and capture (STC) as an elementary mechanism for storing LTM in neural networks.

Metaplasticity as a compensatory mechanism for improving memory in neural networks.

What do you see as your future research directions?

We explore synaptic plasticity and the underlying molecular mechanisms in the various hippocampal subfields and also how other brain regions such as the amygdala influence plasticity in the hippocampus. The role of epigenetics and neuromodulation in memory mechanisms are being studied. In additional to our goal of understanding the fundamental mechanisms that govern learning and memory, we also direct our research at understanding how aging and pathological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease alter synaptic plasticity and thereby disrupt memory. Through uncovering the mechanisms that underlie such pathological states, we hope to be able to discover therapeutic targets for disease. Recently, we have also been looking at how sleep deprivation and juvenile stress affect synaptic plasticity.

Does your laboratory have a particularly strong research expertise?

In our research, we combine single cell patch clamp and extracellular field electrophysiology with molecular and behavioural studies. We primarily use the rodent brain as our model system. We are also beginning to extend our studies to non-human primates (NHP).

Recent Publications

1. Chelation of hippocampal zinc enhances long-term potentiation and synaptic tagging/capture in CA1 pyramidal neurons of aged rats: implications to aging and memory. Shetty MS, Sharma M, Sajikumar S. Aging Cell. 2016 Sep 16. doi: 10.1111/acel.12537. [Epub ahead of print]
2. STIM2 regulates AMPA receptor trafficking and plasticity at hippocampal synapses. Yap KA, Shetty MS, Garcia-Alvarez G, Lu B, Alagappan D, Oh-Hora M, Sajikumar S, Fivaz M. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2016 Aug 18. pii: S1074-7427(16)30150-2. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2016.08.007. [Epub ahead of print]
3. Differential involvement of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinases and mitogen-activated protein kinases in the dopamine D1/D5 receptor-mediated potentiation in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. Shetty MS, Sajikumar S. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2016 Jul 26. pii: S1074-7427(16)30121-6. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2016.07.020. [Epub ahead of print]
4. Different compartments of apical CA1 dendrites have different plasticity thresholds for expressing synaptic tagging and capture. Sajikumar S, Korte M. Learning & Memory. 2011 Apr 21;18(5):327-331. Print 2011
5. Metaplasticity governs compartmentalization of synaptic tagging and capture through BDNF and PKMzeta (PKMζ). Sajikumar S, Korte M. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Jan 19.