Rajeev Rajendran

Research interests

“If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, ‘real’ is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” [Morpheus, the Matrix]

This is a simplified layman’s version of how the brain works, but in short this is what I’m interested in. My research mainly focuses on how specific behaviors (models of empathy) are encoded in a network of neurons distributed across different brain areas and their respective connections and how changes in their connectivity and/or activity patterns result in behavioral or perceptual changes. I use in vivo opto-trap labeling methods, 2-photon calcium imaging, opto- chemo-genetics, synaptic labeling and connectivity tracing to investigate the mechanisms and causal role of specific neuronal populations or connections.

Mini-bio

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not “Eureka” but “That’s funny …” Isaac Asimov

Rajeev completed his medical degree in 2000 (Medical College Thiruvananthapuram, India), and after a brief stint teaching anatomy (Medical College Alleppey, India) he shifted his focus to basic research in neuroscience. He obtained his PhD on the role of Sonic Hedgehog, a developmental signaling molecule, in animal models of stress and depression and their regulation by therapeutic interventions in the group of Vidita Vaidya , TIFR, Mumbai. In 2010 he moved to Amsterdam for his first postdoc in the lab of Christiaan Levelt , NIN, to study the role of inhibitory neurons in ocular dominance plasticity. One of his projects led to the development of a groundbreaking technique to label and trace inhibitory synapses in vivo and demonstrated that cortical plasticity involves increased turnover of inhibitory synapses. This research, published in Neuron, also appeared in de Volkskrant and De Groene Amsterdammer. He has since moved to the Social Brain lab to apply the latest molecular techniques to understand the cellular basis of empathy.

Side Activities

“One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.” – Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet.

Passionate science geek.
Amateur bird photographer (always on the lookout for that perfect pic!)
A fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Isaac Asimov, Gerald Durrell and Michael Crichton.