Exploring the Neural Symphony of Taste

Hi! I’m Abuzar. My journey in neuroscience began with a fascination for how the brain processes sensory information. I studied Physics at the University of Missouri and received my PhD in Neuroscience from Brandeis University. In my dissertation, I investigated how brain regions coordinate to process taste and demonstrated that these regions likely behave as a joint attractor network—a discovery that opened new avenues for understanding neural dynamics.

One of my most exciting research moments came when I first visualized the synchronized activity patterns between the gustatory cortex and amygdala. It was like watching a neural symphony unfold, with each region playing its unique part in the taste experience. This moment crystallized my passion for understanding the brain’s complex networks.

While my research provided groundbreaking insights into how brain regions coordinate during taste processing, many questions remain. The directionality of influence between regions in the taste circuit over time is still unclear. Additionally, while we know attractor networks require recurrent interactions, and feedforward inputs in taste processing have been studied, the role of feedback projections remains a fascinating mystery.

My current work aims to further elucidate these interactions by investigating the timeseries of influence between the gustatory cortex, basolateral amygdala, and gustatory thalamus, as well as studying the critical role of feedback projections from cortex to amygdala and thalamus.

I’m always eager to connect with fellow neuroscientists, data scientists, or anyone interested in the fascinating world of neural dynamics. Feel free to reach out or explore my projects and publications.

Research Interests

Broadly, I’m interested in the mechanisms underlying the dynamics of processing and neural activity in the brain. This falls under the domain of studying the brain as a dynamical system, and studying the dynamics of interactions in the brain.