Murugan Lab

Neural Circuits underlying Social Behaviors

The Murugan Lab, located at Emory University's Department of Biology, is home to innovative behavioral neuroscience studies, an amazing team of passionate researchers, and whole lot of mice.

Humans engage in a wide variety of social behaviors, but we know very little about the neural substrates and mechanisms driving them

At the Murugan Lab, we utilize mice as model organisms. Rodents, like humans, engage in a staggering variety of distinct behaviors, especially social ones!

In studying the underlying neural mechanisms of social behaviors, we employ cutting edge techniques and technologies. These include, but are not limited to cellular-resolution imaging, electrophysiology, optogenetics, viral intersectional strategies, quantitative behavioral analysis, and machine learning computational networks.

Taking advantage of and further developing these tools, we grow closer with every experiment to understanding how the brain represents, integrates, and acts upon social sensory information in enabling appropiate social behavior.