Stephanie Rudolph, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience

Co-primary, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

(neuroscience category)

Rudolph_Stephanie
Our research focuses on how neuromodulation affects synaptic plasticity, inhibition, and multisensory integration to shape behavior in health and disease.

Behavioral flexibility requires the brain to constantly adapt to environmental changes and physiological state. In response to such external and internal challenges, context-specific neuromodulators act on local and long-range circuits to orchestrate functionally and anatomically connected brain regions that ultimately control behavior. Due to its abundant connections to other parts of the brain, the cerebellum has emerged as an important structure that regulates diverse behaviors, including motor function, cognitive processes, and emotional state. Accordingly, disruption of normal cerebellar function is prevalent in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism. Our laboratory is using a combination of electrophysiology, genetic approaches, imaging, and behavioral testing to better understand the mechanisms that allow the cerebellum to control behavior under physiological and pathophysiological conditions. 

Selected Publications

Tsai PT, Rudolph S, Guo C, Ellegood J, Gibson JM, Schaeffer SM, Mogavero J, Lerch JP, Regehr WG, Sahin M. Sensitive Periods for Cerebellar Mediated Autistic-like Behaviors. Cell Reports. 2018; 25(2), 357–367.e4

Pieper A*, Rudolph S*, Wieser GL, Götze T, Mießner H, Yonemasu T, Yan K, Tzvetanova I, Duverge Castillo B, Bode U, Bormuth I, Wadiche JI, Schwab MH, Goebbels S. *equal contribution NeuroD2 controls inhibitory circuitry formation in the molecular layer of the cerebellum. Sci Rep. 2019 Feb 5;9(1):1448. *equal contribution

Tang JC, Rudolph S, Cepko CL. Viral Delivery of GFP-Dependent Recombinases to the Mouse Brain. Methods Mol Biol. 2017; 1642:109–126. PMID: 28815497

Tang JC, Drokhlyansky E, Etemad B, Rudolph S, Guo B, Wang S, Ellis EG, Li JZ, Cepko CL. Detection and manipulation of live antigen-expressing cells using conditionally stable nanobodies. Elife. 2016 May 20;5. pii: e15312.

Witter L*, Rudolph S*, Pressler RT, Lahlaf SI, Regehr WG. 2016 Jul 20;91(2):312–9. Purkinje Cell Collaterals Enable Output Signals from the Cerebellar Cortex to Feed Back to Purkinje Cells and Interneurons. Neuron *equal contribution 

Guo C, Witter L, Rudolph S, Elliott HL, Ennis KA, Regehr WG. Purkinje Cells Directly Inhibit Granule Cells in Specialized Regions of the Cerebellar Cortex. Neuron. 2016 Sep 21;91(6):1330–41.

Rudolph S, Hull C, Regehr WG. Active Dendrites and Differential Distribution of Calcium Channels Enable Functional Compartmentalization of Golgi Cells. J Neurosci. 2015, 35(47):15492–504. 

Tang JC, Rudolph S, Dhande OS, Abraira VE, Choi S, Lapan SW, Drew IR, Drokhlyansky E, Huberman AD, Regehr WG, Cepko CL. Cell type-specific manipulation with GFP-dependent Cre recombinase. Nat Neurosci. 2015, 18(9):1334–41. 

Coddington LT, Rudolph S, Vande Lune P, Overstreet-Wadiche L, Wadiche JI, Spillover Activation of Inhibition Segregates Interneuronal Subpopulations in the Cerebellar Cortex. Neuron 2013, 78(6):1050–62. 

Leuner K, Li W, Amaral MD, Rudolph S, Calfa G, Schuwald AM, Harteneck C, Inoue T, Pozzo-Miller L. Hyperforin modulates dendritic spine morphology in hippocampal pyramidal neurons by activating Ca(2+) -permeable TRPC6 channels. Hippocampus 2012, 23(1):40–52.