Apoorva Vashisht

Apoorva is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Kahn Lab. Her research focuses on understanding brain-wide functional changes across the lifespan in healthy aging and cognitive disorders. She employs an integrated approach—combining functional MRI, behavioral assays and blood serum/genetic markers— to develop a translational research program bridging animal and human studies. Through her collaboration with the Wig Lab at UT Dallas, she aims to study large-scale brain network organization, cognition and behavior to identify which networks are vulnerable or resilient to focal lesions. Apoorva earned her PhD degree from the City University of New York, where she studied the learning and motivation pathways in addiction pathology and relapse prevention. Her research characterized the beneficial effects of environmental enrichment against cue-induced reinstatement of heroin seeking following chronic heroin use, and the underlying cell type- and region- specific neuroadaptations. When not in the lab, she enjoys reading, writing, hiking, creating art and playing the ukulele— none peer-reviewed, all enthusiastically pursued.