Research
I have worked in very different kinds of projects until now, exploring the widths of behaviour. Starting with psychology followed by face recognition disorders and even studying ecological behaviour. It's been an amazing journey of self-discovery and discovering the field. The scarcity of availability of labs working on neuroscientific topics actually worked out well for me, as it forced me to explore a lot of areas. Have a look at some of my projects below.
Photo credit: Halfpoint/Fotolia
How inflammation might be related to neuropsychiatric disorders like depression?
Have you ever observed that when you are down with flu, have fever, you feel fatigued, don't want to move much, either sleep too much or too little, food doesn't taste as good as it used to taste normally, and you feel demotivated? These symptoms are weirdly similar to symptoms of depression! When you have fever, inflammation in the body rises and my work explores the role of NF-kB cell signalling pathway - that gives rise to cytokines (agents of inflammation in the body), which might affect the neurochemistry of the brain.
The connection between skin tone and socioeconomic status and mental health
Socioeconomic status and skin tone have been thought to be attached to a lot of psychological aspects of an individual. We, in this study, looked into the relationships between them. The study was conducted in the rural and urban areas of West Bengal, India, using the survey method for questions and physiological measurements. This study provided crucial initial insights regarding how factors such as racism might lead to stressors affecting an individual's mental health. This work was done under Dr. Garga Chatterjee at the Ghilu lab, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India.
Photo credit: censusindia.gov.in
Photo credit: Colleague at the Ghilu lab
Indian Database for Prosopagnosia diagnosis
Prosopagnosia is a disease which makes an individual unable to recognize faces. This can happen due to stroke, lesions, Traumatic Brain Injury or other neurological damage to the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain. There are established databases for its diagnosis developed in countries like the USA, UK and China. However, the presence of the other-race effect (it's easier to recognize people from the race you are exposed to more) makes it difficult to diagnose the disease effectively in India. We have been attempting to solve the problem at the Ghilu lab, ISI Kolkata, by creating an accurate diagnostic tool using a face database for the Indian population.
Phenotypic plasticity in feeding behaviour of Drosophila
Drosophila has been a great model organism to study ecological behaviour. As for any organism, adapting to their surroundings and feeding habits lead the way for evolution. The work I did explains how much the flies eat food based on how densely populated its environment is. The study provided a novel insight into how competitive feeding behaviour might have evolved. This work was done under Dr. Bodhisatta Nandy at the Behaviour and Evolution lab, IISER Berhampur, India.
Photo credit: Ankush