Dr Jai Santosh Polepalli

 

Jai Santosh Polepalli
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: jpolepalli@nus.edu.sg

Website: www.polepallilab.org

Major Research Interests

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.

Our research scope spans from molecular & cell biology to systems neuroscience. 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 which are commonly found in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders like autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia.

Current Projects

  • Molecular coding of synapses in the hippocampus
  • Molecular circuitry of reward-seeking
  • Ageing-related human neuronal activity changes

    • Selected Recent Publications

    1. Liakath-Ali K*, Polepalli JS*^, Lee SJ, Cloutier JF, Sudhof TC^. Trans-synaptic Cerebellin4 – neogenin1 signalling mediates LTP in the mouse dentate gyrus. PNAS 2022; 119(20) (corresponding author)
    2. Polepalli JS, Gooch H, Sah P. Diversity of interneurons in the lateral and basal amygdala. njp Science of Learning 2020
    3. 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
    4. 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
    5. 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
    6. 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)
    7. 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
    8. 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)