Gurueswar “Guru” Nagarajan

Guru is from Cuddalore, a town in the southern part of India. Guru obtained his bachelor’s degree from Sathyabama University, Chennai, India. With an interest in neurobiology, he then moved to the United States for his master’s program and joined Dr. Wayne Kuenzel’s lab at the University of Arkansas to study neural mechanisms of lameness in domestic chicken. Under the supervision of Dr. Kuenzel, he finished his doctoral program focused on cellular and molecular mechanisms associated with stress and food intake in the avian brain. He joined Dr. Chudasama’s group at the NIMH in the summer of 2017 for his postdoctoral training to study the functional and anatomical organization of hippocampal neural circuitry associated with complex cognitive functions in developing and adult marmosets. He is also interested in rodent septohippocampal circuits associated with executive functions. Besides research time, he acts as a Fellows Committee liaison for the Animal Care and Research Committee at the NIH.

Peer-Reviewed Papers

Nagarajan G, Jurkevich A, Kang SW, Kuenzel WJ. Anatomical and functional implications of CRH neurons in a septal nucleus of the avian brain: An emphasis on glial-neuronal interaction via V1a receptors in vitro.  J Neuroendocrinol. Ahead of Print. PMID: 28614607.

Nagarajan G, Kang SW, Kuenzel WJ. Functional evidence that the nucleus of the hippocampal commissure shows an earlier activation from a stressor than the paraventricular nucleus: Implication of an additional structural component of the avian hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis.  Neurosci Lett. 2017 Mar 6;642:14-19. PMID: 28137650.

Nagarajan G, Jurkevich A, Kang SW, Kuenzel WJ. Diencephalic and septal structures containing the avian vasotocin receptor (V1aR) involved in the regulation of food intake in chickens, Gallus gallus.  Physiol Behav. 2016 Oct 1;164(Pt A):268-76. PMID: 27317836.

Kuenzel WJ, Hancock M, Nagarajan G, Aman NA, Kang SW. Central effect of vasotocin 4 receptor (VT4R/V1aR) antagonists on the stress response and food intake in chicks given neuropeptide Y (NPY).  Neurosci Lett. 2016 May 4;620:57-61. PMID: 27016389.

Aman NA, Nagarajan G, Kang SW, Hancock M, Kuenzel WJ. Differential responses of the vasotocin 1a receptor (V1aR) and osmoreceptors to immobilization and osmotic stress in sensory circumventricular organs of the chicken (Gallus gallus) brain.  Brain Res. 2016 Oct 15;1649(Pt A):67-78. PMID: 27559012.

Nagarajan G, Tessaro BA, Kang SW, Kuenzel WJ. Identification of arginine vasotocin (AVT) neurons activated by acute and chronic restraint stress in the avian septum and anterior diencephalon.  Gen Comp Endocrinol. 2014 Jun 1;202:59-68. PMID: 24780118.