Student Profiles

Eesha graduated summa cum laude from University of Minnesota in 2022 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and minors in Spanish and Math. As an undergraduate, she was awarded a research grant to fund an independent study on the changes in beta-band neural activity with the progression of Parkinson’s disease under the supervision of Dr. Jerrold Vitek.  This project deepened her interest in computational neuroscience, inspiring her to join other projects within the lab to study Parkinson’s disease and deep brain stimulation (DBS) from multiple angles. In 2021, Eesha conducted research at the Cajal Institute in Madrid under the supervision of Dr. Jose Luis Trejo, studying the role of various hormones or behaviors in adult hippocampal neurogenesis. After graduating, she joined Dr. Sarah Lisanby at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in pursuit of continuing with neuromodulation research, specifically in relation to psychiatric disorders. Here, she led a project using real-time neural activity to trigger transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and another using TMS to measure the effect of ketamine as a treatment for treatment resistant depression (TRD). 

During her graduate study as an NIH Cambridge Scholar, Eesha will work to create a model that encompasses multiple rapid-antidepressant treatments (e.g. TMS, electroconvulsive therapy, DBS) for TRD. Concurrent analysis of different treatments would allow for direct comparison of the different biomarkers and mechanisms thus helping to better signal toward one treatment or another for future patients.