Dr. Balaji Jayaprakash
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor, Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science
Research: Learning and Memory
Post Doctoral Fellow with Prof. Silva, Department of Neurobiology, UCLA, Los Angeles, July 2007- Dec 2011
Post Doctoral Fellow with Prof. Ryan, Department of Biochemistry, Weil Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY – 10021. USA, 2005 – 2007
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Visiting Fellow, 2004 – 2005
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Ph.D. (Chemistry), 2004
Lab members
Sriji S Nath
Sriji joined the lab as a CSRI – DST post doctoral fellow in 2021. She completed PhD in Physiology from the Department of Physiology, AIIMS, New Delhi. During the PhD period, she worked on the role of thalamus in sleep wakefulness and gained expertise in electro physiological characterization of sleep in rodents. Currently she works on the behavioral, structural and molecular underpinnings of memory and learning in aging and rodent models of Alzhiemers disease.
Rajesh Mandal
Rajesh completed his B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering at the Central Institute of Technology in 2019, he pursued his M.Tech in Electronic Design & Technology at Tezpur University. In 2021, he joined this laboratory to delve into the field of Neuroscience.
Currently, his focus lies on a project centered around the design and development of noninvasive, portable opto-electronic devices. These devices are based on broadband functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) and are utilized for the detection of neuronal activity in various regions of the brain. His research interests primarily revolve around (fNIRS) and studying neuronal activity in terms of cellular metabolism pathways.
Aritra Dutta
He pursued his graduation in Microbiology from St Xaviers College, Kolkata (2015- 18) and his masters in Biotechnology from IIT Roorkee (2018- 20). He joined this lab as a graduate student in 2020 with the crave of having in depth understanding of how the brain functions especially in forming memory. He is interested in unraveling the mechanism of encoding information by the brain already primed with different experiences. It has been established that the molecular pathway responsible for encoding memories by the brain which has previously already acquired a similar experience is different from the pathway which gets activated for encoding a novel memory. He is working to understand how such memories formed by a novel experience and subsequent similar experience interact with each other by dissecting the underlying molecular pathway.
Nirupam Das
Nirupam joined our lab in 2018,after finishing his M.Sc in Zoology from Banaras Hindu University(2016-18).From his Master’s day he was interested to study animal behavior and underlying neuronal mechanisms, which motivated him to join our lab. Currently he is working on inhibitory neuronal networks,and its role in maintaining memory specificity, generalization and Higher-order associations. He is using chemogenetics and fiber-photometry techniques to selectively modulate the activity of inhibitory neurons ,and measure their activities in real-time.
Manish Prajapat
Manish completed his bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from the IIT Guwahati. Passionate to understand how the brain generates new information from existing knowledge motivated him to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience. His research explores the mechanisms that resolve the conflict that arises from the interplay between sensory inputs and memory-driven processes within the brain. He uses state-of-the-art methods to reactivate the memory cells in the brain to invoke conflict.
project assistants
Yash Varma
He joined the lab in Apr 2023 as a project assistant. His major during his UG and PG was physics, and by the end of college he developed an interest in photonics and optics.
At NDL, He is looking forward to working on microscopy (specially 2 photon microscopy) while dipping his toes in neurobiology. Two photon microscopy is a very interesting application of nonlinear optics (both at the laser pumping stage where LiNBO3 is used for SHG, and at the excitation stage, where nonlinear absorption takes place).