Neuroenergetics
Bio
Dr. Vidhya Rangaraju started her Research Group Leader position at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience in January 2020. The overarching goal of the Rangaraju group is to investigate the energy use and supply of biological processes in neurons.
Prior to this appointment, Rangaraju was an EMBO and Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in the group of Dr. Erin Schuman at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Germany. During her postdoc, she uncovered the presence of local mitochondrial compartments of energy that fuel local translation during synaptic plasticity.
Rangaraju completed her Ph.D. in the lab of Dr. Timothy Ryan at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. During her graduate work, she developed a novel optical reporter of synaptic ATP to measure dynamic changes in ATP concentrations and elucidated the link between neuronal activity and ATP synthesis.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Vincent du Vigneaud Award of Excellence, Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting Award, the MPIBR Scientific Discovery of the Year Award, the SfN Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award, the CZI Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award, the SfN Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award, and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.
Research
Neuroenergetics
The Neuroenergetics Lab is interested in how neurons, with their unsurpassed morphological complexity, manage their energy landscapes.
Neuronal function is tightly regulated by its metabolic state. Mitochondria, the major energy source, represent a hugely underexplored organellar system in neurons. This lack of knowledge has real consequences for human health, as mitochondrial proteins are hotspots of dysregulation in neurodegenerative diseases.
Current Projects
Using APEX-based proximity labeling and advanced imaging to quantify mitochondria-actin interactions, we discovered novel mitochondrial actin interactors. Many of the identified proteins have implications in neurological and psychiatric disorders such as ALS and autism. We are currently investigating the mitochondrial stabilization mechanisms of these proteins to support long-term synaptic plasticity, fueling learning and memory, and their role in brain disorders, using rodent and human disease models.
We have developed novel spine- and mitochondrial-ATP reporters to image ATP within single spines and mitochondria and have shown that mitochondria generate ATP instantaneously and locally near dendritic spines to support synaptic plasticity. We are currently dissecting the molecular mechanisms driving mitochondrial ATP synthesis in response to plasticity and identifying novel spatiotemporal regulators of ATP synthesis.
We developed a correlative light and electron microscopy pipeline with deep-learning-based data analysis algorithms to quantify remodeling of mitochondrial inner structure, their ATP synthesis machinery, and their association with the endoplasmic reticulum and ribosomes near dendritic spines during neuronal plasticity. We are currently investigating the molecular mechanisms that drive mitochondrial structural remodeling near spines and their link to ATP production during neuronal plasticity.
Investigating how neuronal compartments manage local mitochondrial biogenesis. We employ ribosome profiling, RNA sequencing, and metabolic labeling to identify locally translated mitochondrial transcripts.
News & Media
News
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Lab
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Recent Papers
Preprints
Mitochondria structurally remodel near synapses to fuel the sustained energy demands of plasticity
Shah, M., Ghosh, I., Pishos, L., Villani, V., Pancani, T., Yasuda, R., Sun, C., Kamasawa, N., & Rangaraju, V. (2025). Mitochondria structurally remodel near synapses to fuel the sustained energy demands of plasticity (p. 2025.08.27.672715). bioRxiv.
Synapses drive local mitochondrial ATP synthesis to fuel plasticity
Ghosh, I., Fan, R., Shah, M., Bapat, O., & Rangaraju, V. (2025). Synapses drive local mitochondrial ATP synthesis to fuel plasticity (p. 2025.04.09.648032). bioRxiv.
An expanded palette of bright and photostable organellar Ca2+ sensors
Moret, A., Farrants, H., Fan, R., Zingg, K. G., Silva, B., Roselli, C., Oertner, T. G., Gee, C. E., Hadjieconomou, D., Rangaraju, V., Schreiter, E. R., & Juan-Sanz, J. de. (2025). An expanded palette of bright and photostable organellar Ca2+ sensors. eLife, 14.
Publications
Activity-regulated circSamm50 modulates mitochondrial dynamics and spine structural plasticity
Chanda, K., Bapat, O., Wingfield, J. L., Avchalumov, Y., Kazantzis, M., Carter, J. P., Sharma, N., Davis, R., Yuan, J. X.-J., Rangaraju, V., & Puthanveettil, S. V. (2026). Activity-regulated circSamm50 modulates mitochondrial dynamics and spine structural plasticity. Cell Reports, 45(6).
Mitochondrial Ca2+ efflux controls neuronal metabolism and long-term memory across species
Amrapali Vishwanath, A., Comyn, T., Mira, R. G., Brossier, C., Pascual-Caro, C., Faour, M., Boumendil, K., Chintaluri, C., Ramon-Duaso, C., Fan, R., Ghosh, K., Farrants, H., Berwick, J.-P., Sivakumar, R., Lopez-Manzaneda, M., Schreiter, E. R., Preat, T., Vogels, T. P., Rangaraju, V., … de Juan-Sanz, J. (2026). Mitochondrial Ca2+ efflux controls neuronal metabolism and long-term memory across species. Nature Metabolism, 1–22.
Periodic ER-plasma membrane junctions support long-range Ca2+ signal integration in dendrites
Benedetti, L., Fan, R., Weigel, A. V., Moore, A. S., Houlihan, P. R., Kittisopikul, M., Park, G., Petruncio, A., Hubbard, P. M., Pang, S., Xu, C. S., Hess, H. F., Saalfeld, S., Rangaraju, V., Clapham, D. E., De Camilli, P., Ryan, T. A., & Lippincott-Schwartz, J. (2024). Periodic ER-plasma membrane junctions support long-range Ca2+ signal integration in dendrites. Cell.
Synaptically-targeted long non-coding RNA SLAMR promotes structural plasticity by increasing translation and CaMKII activity
Espadas, I., Wingfield, J. L., Nakahata, Y., Chanda, K., Grinman, E., Ghosh, I., Bauer, K. E., Raveendra, B., Kiebler, M. A., Yasuda, R., Rangaraju, V., & Puthanveettil, S. (2024). Synaptically-targeted long non-coding RNA SLAMR promotes structural plasticity by increasing translation and CaMKII activity. Nature Communications, 15(1), 1–24.
NMNAT2 supports vesicular glycolysis via NAD homeostasis to fuel fast axonal transport.
Yang, S., Niou, Z.-X., Enriquez, A., LaMar, J., Huang, J.-Y., Ling, K., Jafar-Nejad, P., Gilley, J., Coleman, M. P., Tennessen, J. M., Rangaraju, V., & Lu, H.-C. (2024). NMNAT2 supports vesicular glycolysis via NAD homeostasis to fuel fast axonal transport. Molecular Neurodegeneration, 19(1), 13.
VAP spatially stabilizes dendritic mitochondria to locally support synaptic plasticity.
Bapat, O., Purimetla, T., Kruessel, S., Shah, M., Fan, R., Thum, C., Rupprecht, F., Langer, J. D., & Rangaraju, V. (2024). VAP spatially stabilizes dendritic mitochondria to locally support synaptic plasticity. Nature Communications, 15: 205
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