Dr. Jess Nithianantharajah is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and heads the Synapse Biology and Cognition laboratory within the Division of Behavioural Neuroscience. She completed her doctoral thesis in behavioural neuroscience at the University of Melbourne examining synaptic changes following learning and experience, and commenced postdoctoral training at the Howard Florey Institute to further investigate gene-environment interactions modulating experience-dependent synaptic plasticity.
Dr. Nithianantharajah was recruited as a postdoctoral fellow by Prof. Seth Grant at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK. During this time, she held a joint appointment at the University of Cambridge working with Prof. Tim Bussey and Dr. Lisa Saksida on the development of the novel rodent touchscreen cognitive tests - an innovative behavioural tool for mice that has advanced how we model complex learning and mental processes in animals. Employing the rodent touchscreen assays to probe distinct cognitive components, Dr. Nithianantharajah’s recent work has provided the first evidence of dissecting the cognitive repertoire in mice to show that these cognitive components are differentially regulated by a family of postsynaptic scaffold proteins, providing novel insights into the evolution of cognition. Moreover, her research has been the first to showcase the translational capacity of the touchscreens in assessing cognition in mice and humans carrying mutations in the same gene, highlighting the clinical relevance of this innovative method. She relocated to the University of Edinburgh and in 2014, was recruited back to the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Heath as an Independent group leader. Dr. Nithianantharajah’s research interests lie in understanding the role of synaptic genes in cognition and disease.
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Jess Nithianantharajah's highlights
FEATURED Journal article
Neurodevelopmental synaptopathies: Insights from behaviour in rodent models of synapse gene mutations
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Projects
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Project Types
4
Research Grant
Scholarly Works
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Credentials
Positions
Arc Future Fellow
Florey Department Of Neuroscience And Mental Health
Education
Bachelor of Science (Honours)
University of Melbourne
PhD Behavioural Neuroscience
University of Melbourne