Yes, I do have a really long name – that’s why I go by Viji. I have been in the Mody Lab since April of 2006. 

I am interested in understanding the role of the interneuronal diversity in shaping network activity in the healthy and epileptic hippocampus. The focus of my current project is to examine the differences in the physiology and machinery of synaptic release between interneuronal subtypes. Recent studies have identified differences in the machinery underlying synaptic release between excitatory and inhibitory terminals suggesting cell type specificity of the molecules mediating synaptic release. Additionally, the presence of distinct calcium binding proteins in specific classes of interneurons is likely to contribute to differences in synaptic release between interneuronal subtypes. My aim to determine the how subtype specific properties of vesicle release might contribute an added dimension to inhibitory diversity. 

In what seems a lifetime ago, I obtained my bachelor’s degree is in Medicine and Surgery from Kilpauk Medical College, India – well, this M.D equivalent is an undergraduate course in India. After a year of residency in oto-rhino-laryngology (just like to say that ‘coz it is a mouthful!) and practicing as a physician I decided to pursue my interest in basic science. I eased my way from clinical ENT to basic neuroscience by starting with a familiar system: I studied binaural sound localization in vivo with Dr. Leonard M. Kitzes at the University of California at Irvine. 

During my thesis work with Dr. Ivan Soltesz at the University of California, Irvine, I studied mechanisms underlying plasticity of hippocampal circuits and extracellular potassium regulation in seizure disorders. Using a combination of anatomical and electrophysiological techniques, I identified changes in neuronal excitability, network reorganizations and lasting increases in limbic excitability following experimental head injury.  After graduation, I stayed on in the Soltesz lab for a very enjoyable year learning and applying computational and graph theoretical methods to examine the role of mossy fiber sprouting and cell loss on network topology and epileptogenesis in the dentate gyrus. It was during these studies and dynamic clamp experiments on role of IPSC variability on pyramidal cell excitability that I became interested in the cause and consequence of interneuronal heterogeneity.  Motivated by the desire to understanding inhibitory diversity at the level of the receptors I joined the lab of Dr. Thomas S. Otis at UCLA and spent two fruitful years studying the molecular specificity and modulation of synaptic and extrasynaptic inhibition in cerebellar circuits. After looking at the receptors on the postsynaptic element, I moved to the Mody lab to study the physiology of presynaptic terminals in hippocampal interneurons….

 Biographical Sketch Vijayalakshmi Santhakumar

Updated February 2012: Viji is currently an Assistant Professor and has her own laboratory  at New Jersely Medical School.