Faculty

Shinjae Chung, Ph.D.

faculty photo
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
Department: Neuroscience

Contact information
Department of Neuroscience
Chronobiology and Sleep Institute
Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
Smilow Center for Translational Research, Room 10-133
3400 Civic Center Blvd. Bldg. 421
Philadelphia, PA 19151
Office: 215-746-1122
Education:
B.S. (Life Sciences and Biotechnology)
Korea University, 2002.
Ph.D. (Pharmacology; Developmental and Cell Biology)
University of California, Irvine, 2008.
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Description of Research Expertise

Research interests
Neural circuits for sleep and emotional brain function

Key words
Sleep, neuropsychiatric diseases, hypothalamus, stress, neurodevelopmental disorders

Research techniques
Optogenetics, deep brain calcium imaging, in vivo physiology, gene profiling, virus-mediated circuit mapping, sleep recording

Research summary
The goal of our lab is to identify the molecular and neural mechanisms controlling sleep, and to understand how these are interconnected with the neural circuits regulating emotional states in health and disease. To accomplish this, we employ a multi-disciplinary approach including optogenetics, in vivo electrophysiology, imaging, virus-mediated circuit mapping and gene profiling.

Selected Publications

Chung S, Weber F, Zhong P, Tan CL, Nguyen TN, Beier KT, Hörmann N, Chang WC, Zhang Z, Do JP, Yao S, Krashes MJ, Tasic B, Cetin A, Zeng H, Knight ZA, Luo L, Dan Y. : Identification of preoptic sleep neurons using retrograde labelling and gene profiling. Nature 545: 477–481, May 2017.

Xu M, Chung S, Zhang S, Zhong P, Ma C, Chang WC, Weissbourd B, Sakai N, Luo L, Nishino S, Dan Y: Basal forebrain circuit for sleep-wake control. Nature Neuroscience 18(11): 1641-7, Nov 2015 Notes: Xu and Chung are co-first author.

Weber F, Chung S, Beier KT, Xu M, Luo L, Dan Y: Control of REM sleep by ventral medulla GABAergic neurons. Nature 526(7573): 435-8, Oct 2015.

Chung S, Liao XH, Di Cosmo C, Van Sande J, Wang Z, Refetoff S, Civelli O: Disruption of the melanin-concentrating hormone receptor 1 (MCH1R) affects thyroid function. Endocrinology 153(12): 6145-54, Dec 2012.

Chung S, Hopf FW, Nagasaki H, Li CY, Belluzzi JD, Bonci A, Civelli O: The melanin-concentrating hormone system modulates cocaine reward. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 106(16): 6772-7, Apr 2009.

Nagasaki H, Chung S, Dooley CT, Wang Z, Li C, Saito Y, Clark SD, Houghten RA, Civelli O: The pharmacological properties of a novel MCH1 receptor antagonist isolated from combinatorial libraries. European Journal of Pharmacology 602(2-3): 194-202, Jan 2009 Notes: Nagasaki and Chung are co-first author.

Chung S, Verheij MM, Hesseling P, van Vugt RW, Buell M, Belluzzi JD, Geyer MA, Martens GJ, Civelli O: The melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) system modulates behaviors associated with psychiatric disorders. PloS One 6(7): e19286, Jul 2011.

Chung S, Pohl S, Zeng J, Civelli O, Reinscheid RK: Endogenous orphanin FQ/nociceptin is involved in the development of morphine tolerance. The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 318(1): 262-7, Jul 2006.

Zhang Z, Zhong P, Hu F, Barger Z, Ren Y, Ding X, Li S, Weber F, Chung S, Palmiter RD, Dan Y: An excitatory circuit in the perioculomotor midbrain for non-REM sleep control. Cell 177(5): 1293, 2019.

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Last updated: 02/11/2024
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