Arkarup Banerjee
Associate Professor
Ph.D., CSHL School of Biological Sciences, 2016
[email protected] | 516-367-6878
During a conversation, our brain must interpret what we hear and control our vocal response. How does the brain transform these auditory sensations into action? My laboratory uses singing mice as a model system to investigate the neural circuits in the brain that underlie vocal communication in mammals.
Social animals must interact with each other to cooperate and compete. Using sounds for such interactions is common across many taxa. Humans engaged in conversation, for example, take rapid turns to go back and forth–a feat that most of us tend to perform effortlessly, but which breaks down during neuropsychiatric disorders. Our understanding of neural circuits that underlie vocal communication, especially in mammals, remains quite rudimentary. Recently, we have discovered that a neo-tropical rodent, Alston’s singing mouse, engages in fast vocal interactions, even under laboratory settings. The Banerjee lab, using this novel model system, seeks to pursue two complementary questions. First, how does the auditory system interact with the motor system to generate the sensorimotor loop required for vocal communication? Second, what are the neural circuit modifications that allow behavioral novelty to emerge during evolution? Various rodent species exhibit marked differences in vocal behaviors. Genes that determine such behavioral differences, for example between the singing mouse and the lab mouse, must act via neural circuits within the brain. Yet, the structural and functional changes in the brain that specify the distinct vocal repertoires across related species remain unknown. Research in the lab combines cutting-edge systems neuroscience and comparative evolutionary analyses of neural circuitry across rodent species to bridge this knowledge-gap.
2024 Winship Herr Award for Excellence in Teaching, School of Biological Sciences, CSHL
2023-2026 Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Awards in Neurosciences
2022-2024 Searle Scholar, Searle Scholars Program
2020 Advances and Perspectives in Auditory Neuroscience Talk award
2017 Selected as a Junior Fellow at the Simons Foundation Society of Fellows, NY.
2016 National Science Foundation Travel Award, AREADNE conference, Santorini, Greece.
2015 Best Talk at the Graduate Student Symposium, CSHL, USA.
2007 Karyn Kupcinet International Summer Fellowship, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.
What makes a mouse sing?
May 7, 2026
Yes, some mice can sing. Listen to their songs as heard by the recent CSHL School of Biological Sciences graduate who studies them.
Meet the School of Biological Sciences Class of 2026
May 7, 2026
This year’s six Ph.D. recipients reflect on their time and experiences at CSHL.
What can singing mice say about human speech?
May 6, 2026
It turns out that the emergence of remarkably complex behaviors may only require a simple evolutionary hack.
Singing mice speak volumes
December 1, 2025
A new discovery from CSHL’s Banerjee lab offers an important clue in the mystery of how mammals’ brains evolved to enable complex behaviors.
Arkarup Banerjee named 2025 McKnight Scholar
June 19, 2025
The CSHL neuroscientist will receive $225,000 over three years for his lab's studies of the neural mechanisms underlying vocal communication.
A perception quiz to blow your mind
March 26, 2025
Ready to think differently about how you see, smell, hear, taste, touch, and make sense of the world around you?
The greatest challenge in the universe
March 17, 2025
How does the brain turn sensory information into world-building neural responses? New answers could open the door to AI-powered therapeutics.
Banerjee named NAS Kavli Fellow
March 4, 2025
The National Academy of Sciences selects CSHL Assistant Professor Ararkup Banerjee to participate in its annual Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposium.
At the Lab Season 1 Research Rewind: Neuroscience
October 15, 2024
What do you think? How do you know? And who are you anyway? We probe each of these questions with the help of Cold Spring Harbor’s neuroscientists.
Northern Lights shine over CSHL
July 25, 2024
The Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? In this part of the country? CSHL’s Arka Banerjee was on the scene to capture the dazzling display.
Selected Publications
14 Sep 2024 | bioRxiv
Banerjee, Arkarup; Isko, Emily; Harpole, Clifford; Zheng, Xiaoyue; Zhan, Huiqing; Davis, Martin; Zador, Anthony;
30 Jan 2024 | Nature Neuroscience
Banerjee, Arkarup; Chen, Feng; Druckmann, Shaul; Long, Michael;
19 Jun 2021 | Neuron
Banerjee, Arkarup; Egger, Robert; Long, Michael;
1 Mar 2019 | Science | 363(6430):983-+
Jr, Okobi; Banerjee, Arkarup; Matheson, Andrew; Phelps, Steven; Long, Michael;
All Publications
22 Sep 2025 | Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology | :a041510
Banerjee, Arkarup; Phelps, Steven; Kebschull, Justus;
5 Apr 2025 | bioRxiv
Zheng, Xiaoyue; Harpole, Clifford; Davis, Martin; Banerjee, Arkarup;
28 Mar 2025 | bioRxiv
Koh, Matthew; Anselmi, Francesca; Kaushalya, Sanjeev; Hernandez, Diego; Bast, Walter; Villar, Pablo; Chae, Honggoo; Davis, Martin; Teja, Sadhu; Qu, Zhe; Gradinaru, Viviana; Gupta, Priyanka; Banerjee, Arkarup; Albeanu, Dinu;
18 Feb 2025 | bioRxiv
Shen, Yang; Banerjee, Arkarup; Albeanu, Dinu; Navlakha, Saket;
23 Jan 2023 | bioRxiv
Banerjee, Arkarup; Chen, Feng; Druckmann, Shaul; Long, Michael;
26 Sep 2022 | Neuron | :S0896-6273(22)00810
Chae, Honggoo; Banerjee, Arkarup; Dussauze, Marie; Albeanu, Dinu;