Malu Murugan
Neuroscientist, Assistant Professor at Emory University www.muruganlab.com
- Thanks @sfn.org. truly an honor.
- Congratulations to the recipients of the 2025 Early Career awards & Promotion of Women in Neuroscience awards! These researchers are advancing neuroscience through groundbreaking discoveries, mentorship, & scientific excellence. Listen to their remarks: vist.ly/4e2ut #SfN25 #neurosky
- I'm incredibly honored to receive the Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award from @sfn.org SFN was the first research conference I ever attended and presented at. I feel truly humbled! Thanks to my fab research team who make me look good!
- Congratulations to the 2025 SfN award & prize recipients! Their dedication to advancing the understanding of the brain paves the way for future discoveries. SfN looks forward to celebrating their achievements at #SfN25. Learn about the recipients. 🔗 vist.ly/4cni8 #neurosky
- Thanks to my incredible mentors @ilanawitten.bsky.social and Rich Mooney, who have shaped me and my science. And thanks to my colleagues at Emory, who are simply the best!
- Happy Halloween!
- Reposted by Malu MuruganReally fantastic work led by Ben Dykstra!
- Our newest preprint! Work led by Ben Dykstra (co-mentored by @gordonberman.bsky.social). Some of the first recordings from the iCA3 region during social behaviors. Ben found that iCA3 neurons more strongly represent social recognition information relative to iCA1 . www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
- Our newest preprint! Work led by Ben Dykstra (co-mentored by @gordonberman.bsky.social). Some of the first recordings from the iCA3 region during social behaviors. Ben found that iCA3 neurons more strongly represent social recognition information relative to iCA1 . www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
- Ben found that both in the iCA1 and iCA3, social information is strongly multiplexed with spatial information. Making the traditional social discrimination assays hard to interpret.
- So Ben developed a novel linear presentation assay which allows him to present multiple social targets at the same location using an automated programmable conveyor belt.
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View full threadThe data suggest distinct roles for iCA1 and iCA3 in how they represent social novelty information.
- Reposted by Malu MuruganVery happy to share an expansion to the comparative gene editing toolkit: AAVs to reduce dopamine receptor levels that are functional in many rodent species. Fun collaboration with @malu-murugan.bsky.social, Elliott Albers and Frank Meye.
- Check out this exciting new tool from @ajboender.bsky.social - An aav based CRISPR-Cas9 strategy to knockdown dopamine receptors. Works in mice, voles and hamsters. It was a fun collaboration. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reach out to Arjen if you want to try it out in your favorite model system. Congratulations to @soniakarkare.bsky.social and Dario Aspesi who did all the experimental work.
- Reposted by Malu MuruganNon-overlapping social and food reward representations in the basolateral amygdala biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
- Excited to share our latest preprint led by @jarildy.bsky.social looking at social and non social reward representations. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... with help from @hyma2194.bsky.social and @jennisisaac.bsky.social.
- Taking advantage of a two choice social -food operant assay, Jari found that largely being overlapping populations of bla neurons represent social and food rewards.
- Jari also found that, in contrast to the mpfc, food rewards are more strongly represented relative to social rewards in the bla.
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View full threadFinally, interestingly, she found that neurons that showed increased activity in response to reward were more sensitive to reward omissions in comparison to neurons that decreased their activity in response to reward - showing functional heterogeneity in bla neurons activity
- Come be my colleague! Lots of exciting science, fantastic students and supportive colleagues. Emory University Biology Department tenure-track assistant professor position in neuroscience. share.google/945Jko4W1MTA.... Please feel free to retweet and share widely.
- Accepted manuscript version of this paper up on J.Neuro. @sfnjournals.bsky.social . Beautiful work led by @jennisisaac.bsky.social and @soniakarkare.bsky.social with help from @hyma2194.bsky.social characterizing various LS projection populations and their inputs. www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
- Lateral septum enthusiast? Interested in learning more about how LS projection populations and their inputs are organized. Check out our preprint in which @jennisisaac.bsky.social and @soniakarkare.bsky.social map out brain wide inputs to 6 LS projection populations. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Beautiful story on the lateral septum!
- Our new preprint: 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞-𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐦 𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. We describe how the LS guides defensive responses by forming critical computations built from functionally and molecularly distinct cells and their afferent inputs. www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6...
- Lab t-shirts are here finally. Thanks to fab undergrad Paul Kim for designing them.
- A ventral hippocampal-lateral septum pathway regulates social novelty preference. Version of record - now available on @elife.bsky.social check it out doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
- Reposted by Malu MuruganThe Telly Awards has named our short film on the life and impact of our co-founder Jim Simons as a People’s Telly Gold Winner in the general non-broadcast category. Read more: www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/05/20/f... #science #philanthropy
- Reposted by Malu MuruganWe’re hiring a postdoc with slice patch-clamp expertise to study head direction circuits and plasticity during spatial learning. Ideal for a neurophysiologist excited to combine ex vivo and in vivo approaches. Come join us in beautiful Cambridge! 🐭🧭🧠 📝 Apply by 9 June: www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/51282/
- Congratulations on a masterful defense @jennisisaac.bsky.social So incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to mentor you. Can't wait to see all the insanely cool stuff you do. Keep an eye out for Jenni's work on the lateral septum soon
- Let us know what you think.
- Organization of brainwide inputs to discrete lateral septum projection populations biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
