Jai Santosh Polepalli
Ph. D
Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS
Principal Investigator, LSI Neurobiology Programme,
National University of Singapore
Centre for Life Sciences, 28 Medical Drive #05-01L
Singapore 117456
Tel: 6516 3201
Email: antjsp@nus.edu.sg

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

My group studies the core mechanisms of neuronal synaptic and circuit function, including activity-dependent changes in synaptic strength and circuit connectivity in key regions of the brain that mediate memory-guided and reward-seeking behaviours.

What do you see as your future research directions?

Our goal is to probe the molecular, synaptic and neuronal circuit malfunctions that are often found in disease. We are particularly interested in the functional characterisation of mutations that are commonly found in patients with psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders like autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, our future research will focus on understanding the biology of synapses that contain excitatory non-glutamate ionotropic receptors.

Does your laboratory have a particularly strong research expertise?

My group’s research scope spans from molecular and cell biology to computation and systems neuroscience, with expertise in synaptic physiology. Some of the tools and techniques we routinely use in the lab are- mouse genetics, gene editing tools including CRISPR-Cas9 system, opto/chemo genetics combined with trans-sectional genetics and circuit mapping viral tools, in-vitro whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology, transcriptomics and rodent behaviour.

Selected Recent Publications

1. Seigneur E,Polepalli JS, Sudhof TC. Cbln2 and Cbln4 are expressed in distinct medial habenula-interpeduncular projections and contribute to different behavioral outputs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2018; 201811086
2. Hung LW, Neuner S*,Polepalli JS*, Beier KT*, Wright M, Walsh JJ, Eastman LM, Luo L, Deisseroth K, Dolen G, Malenka R. Gating of social reward by oxytocin in the ventral tegmental area. Science. 2017; 357 (6358): 1406-1411
3. Polepalli JS, Wu H, Goswami D, Halpern CH, Sudhof TC and Malenka RC. Modulation of excitation on parvalbumin interneurons by neuroligin-3 regulates the hippocampal network. Nature Neuroscience. 2017; 20(2):219-229
4. Polepalli JS*, Jiang M*, Chen LY, Zhang B, Sudhof TC and Malenka RC. Conditional ablation of neuroligin-1 in CA1 pyramidal neurons blocks LTP by a cell autonomous NMDA receptor independent mechanism. Molecular Psychiatry. 2017; 22(3):375-383 (* co-first author)
5. Schwartz N, Temkin P, Jurado S, Lim BK, Heifets BD, Polepalli JS and Malenka RC. Decreased motivation during chronic pain requires long-term depression in the nucleus accumbens. Science. 2014; 345(6196):535-42
6. Polepalli JS*, Ahmad M*, Goswami D, Yang X, Kaesar-Woo Y, Südhof TC and Malenka RC. Postsynaptic Complexin Controls AMPA Receptor Exocytosis During LTP. Neuron. 2012; 73(2):260-7 (* co-first author)