Jennifer Morgan

Senior Scientist and Director, Bell Center

Jennifer Morgan
Contact Information
Education
Ph.D., Neurobiology, Duke University School of Medicine, 2001
B.S. with Honors, Biology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995
MBL Affiliation
Bell Center
Research Area
Cell Biology
Models of Human Disease
Neuroscience
Regeneration

The laboratory of Dr. Jennifer Morgan studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which neurons communicate with each other at synapses, a process called synaptic transmission. We study mechanisms of normal synaptic transmission, as well as how neurotransmission is impacted by spinal cord injury and disease. One ongoing project involves identifying how synapses are deleteriously affected by Parkinson's disease, and we are currently developing strategies to slow or reverse disease-associated synaptic dysfunction. Another project is focused on understanding how neurotransmission can be restored after spinal cord injury by regenerative processes, such as axon and synapse regrowth, or other forms of neural plasticity. Ultimately, we want to understand how these regenerative processes contribute to restoring normal behaviors after injury and how to improve functional outcomes.

For these projects, we use sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) as our model organism. Lampreys are cyclostomes, which are the most basal extant group of vertebrates. Lampreys possess a subset of very large neurons that can be identified across animals, the giant reticulospinal (RS) neurons, which provides several advantages for our studies. First, as the name indicates, these RS neurons are giant! They have especially large axons (20-80 microns) and synapses (1-2 microns), which are easily an order of magnitude larger than in most vertebrate models. Second, these giant neurons are experimentally tractable and amenable to molecular manipulations both in the normal and regenerating state. To approach our questions, we utilize a variety of technical approaches including, candidate gene and transcriptome analyses, molecular perturbations, biochemistry, fluorescence imaging, histology, electron microscopy, electrophysiology, and behavior.

News and Research Highlights
Selected Publications

Maxson Jones K,听Morgan JR听(2023) Lampreys and spinal cord regeneration: 鈥渁 very special claim on the interest of zoologists,鈥 1830s-present.听Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.听11:1113961. doi: . PMID: 37228651.听

Hamlet C, Fauci L,听Morgan JR, Tytell ED (2023) Proprioceptive feedback amplification restores effective locomotion in a neuromechanical model of lampreys with spinal injuries.听Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.听120(11):e2213302120. doi: . PMID: 36897980.听

Brady EB, McQuillan M, Medeiros AT, Bubacco L, Sousa R, Lafer EM,听Morgan JR听(2023). Hsc70 rescues the synaptic vesicle trafficking defects caused by 伪-synuclein dimers.听microPublication Biology. 10.17912/micropub.biology.000737. PMID: 3698331.听doi:

Pattanayak R, Underwood R, Crowley MR, Crossman DK,听Morgan JR, Yacoubian TA (2022) Deletion in chromosome 6 spanning alpha-synuclein and multimerin1 loci in the Rab27a/b double knockout mouse.听Scientific Reports听12:9837 doi: .听

Katz HR, Arcese AA, Bloom O,听Morgan JR听(2022) Activating transcription factor 3 (ATF3) is a highly-conserved pro-regenerative transcription factor in the vertebrate nervous system.听Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.10:824036. doi: .听

Fouke KE, Wegman ME, Weber SA, Brady EB, Rom谩n-Vendrell C,听Morgan JR听(2021) Synuclein regulates synaptic vesicle clustering and docking at a vertebrate synapse.听Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.听听9:774650. doi: .听

Fies J, Gemmell BJ, Fogerson SM,听Morgan JR, Tytell E, Colin SP (2021) Swimming kinematics and performance of spinal transected lampreys with different levels of axon regeneration.听Journal of Experimental Biology.听jeb.242639. doi: .听

Haspel G, Severi KE, Fauci LJ, Cohen N, Tytell ED,听Morgan JR听(2021) Resilience of neural networks for locomotion.听Journal of Physiology.听doi: .

Rom谩n-Vendrell C, Medeiros AT, Sanderson JB, Jiang H, Bartels T,听Morgan JR听(2021) Effects of excess brain-derived human听a-synuclein on synaptic vesicle trafficking.听Frontiers in Neuroscience.听15:639414 doi: .

Katz HR, Fouke KE, Losurdo NA*,听Morgan JR听(2020) Recovery of burrowing behavior after spinal cord injury in the larval sea lamprey.听Biological Bulletin. December 2020.听.

Soll L, Eisen JN, Vargas KJ, Medeiros AT, Hammar KM,听Morgan JR听(2020)听a-Synuclein-112 impairs synaptic vesicle recycling consistent with enhanced membrane binding properties.听Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology. 8:405. doi: .

Banks SML*, Medeiros AT*, McQuillan M, Wang L, Ibarraran-Viniegra AS, Busch DJ, Sousa R, Lafer EM,听Morgan JR.听 (2020)听Hsc70 Ameliorates the Vesicle Recycling Defects Caused by Excess 伪-Synuclein at Synapses.听别狈别耻谤辞听7(1). pii: ENEURO.0448-19.2020. doi: .听(* equal contributors)听 听

Chanaday N, Cousin M, Milosevic I, Watanabe S,听Morgan JR听(2019) The synaptic vesicle cycle revisited:听 new insights into the modes and mechanisms.听Journal of Neuroscience.听听39:8209-8216. doi: .

Hanslik K, Allen SR, Fogerson SM, Harkenrider T, Guadarrama E,听Morgan JR.听听(2019)听Behavioral and functional recovery in the sea lamprey after spinal cord re-transection.听PLoS One.听14(1):e0204193. doi: . (Featured in听Nature:听Research Highlights Feb. 6, 2019)