CV
CV PDF
Resume PDF
Research Interests
Sensory Processing, Systems Neuroscience, Complex Systems, Dynamical Systems, Electrophysiology.
Education
- Ph.D in Systems Neuroscience, Brandeis University, 2023
- M.S. in Neuroscience, Brandeis University, 2019
- B.S. in Physics, University of Missouri, 2017
- Minors in Mathematics, Computational Neuroscience, Chemistry, and Biology
Research experience
- Postdoctoral Researcher, Brandeis University, MA Starting April 2023
- Project: Dynamics of information flow during the evoked taste response
- Research Summary : My doctoral research showed that cortical and amygdalar activity is coordinated for taste processing, however, the dynamics of directionality of this influence are not known. Furthermore, cortex receives simultaneous input from both amygdalar and thalamic pathways, however neither the dynamics of thalamo-cortical interaction, nor the interplay between limbic and thalamic input on cortex have not been investigated. This project proposes to investigate the dynamics of influence of the limbic and thalamic pathways on activity in the gustatory cortex and investigate the role of feedback projections from the gustatory cortex to the basolateral amygdala and gustatory thalamus.
- Ph.D. Researcher, Brandeis University, MA 2017 – Feb 2023
- Thesis Advisor: Donald B. Katz
- Thesis Title: Multi-region Coordination for Taste Processing in the Rodent Brain
- Research Summary : Multiple recurrently-connected brain regions are involved in taste processing, however, the real-time interactions between brain regions for taste processing has not been investigated. This project investigated the dynamics of coordination between the basolateral amygdala and the gustatory cortex and tested whether the regions phenomenologically behave as an attractor network.
- Data Science Intern, TrackstarHQ, NY 2022
- Research Summary : Developed computational models to detect outliers and changepoints in online timeseries data, and contributed to creating and managing infrastructure for performing online inference.
- Undergraduate Researcher, University of Missouri, MO 2013-2017
- Research Advisor: Lakshmi Pulakat
- Research Summary : Projects involving : 1) investigation of a novel pharmaceutical drug for treatment of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, 2) pre-clinical testing of a novel fluidics device for delivering drugs and genetic material
Publications
Gul R, Mahmood A, Luck C, Lum-Naihe K, Alfadda AA, Speth RC, Pulakat L (2015) Regulation of cardiac miR-208a, an inducer of obesity, by rapamycin and nebivolol. Obesity 23:2251–2259.
Luck C, DeMarco VG, Mahmood A, Gavini MP, Pulakat L (2017) Differential Regulation of Cardiac Function and Intracardiac Cytokines by Rapamycin in Healthy and Diabetic Rats. Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity 2017:e5724046.
Arnold N, Mahmood A, Ramdas M, Ehlinger PP, Pulakat L (2017) Regulation of the cardioprotective adiponectin and its receptor AdipoR1 by salt. Can J Physiol Pharmacol 95:305–309.
Lum-Naihe K, Toedebusch R, Mahmood A, Bajwa J, Carmack T, Kumar SA, Ardhanari S, DeMarco VG, Emter CA, Pulakat L (2017) Cardiovascular disease progression in female Zucker Diabetic Fatty rats occurs via unique mechanisms compared to males. Sci Rep 7:17823.
Mahmood A, Pulakat L (2015) Differential Effects of β-Blockers, Angiotensin II Receptor Blockers, and a Novel AT2R Agonist NP-6A4 on Stress Response of Nutrient-Starved Cardiovascular Cells. PLOS ONE 10:e0144824.
Gavini MP, Mahmood A, Belenchia AM, Beauparlant P, Kumar SA, Ardhanari S, DeMarco VG, Pulakat L (2021) Suppression of Inflammatory Cardiac Cytokine Network in Rats with Untreated Obesity and Pre-Diabetes by AT2 Receptor Agonist NP-6A4. Frontiers in Pharmacology 12 Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.693167.
Lin J-Y, Stone BT, Herzog LE, Nanu R, Mahmood A, Katz DB (2021) The function of groups of neurons changes from moment to moment. Curr Opin Physiol 20:1–7.
Stone BT, Lin J-Y, Mahmood A, Sanford AJ, Katz DB (2022) LiCl-induced sickness modulates rat gustatory cortical responses. PLOS Biology 20:e3001537.
Mahmood A, Steindler J, Germaine H, Miller P, Katz DB (2023) Coupled Dynamics of Stimulus-Evoked Gustatory Cortical and Basolateral Amygdalar Activity. J Neurosci 43:386–404.
Teaching
Honors and Awards
- Brandeis University
- XSEDE Research Award, NSF 2019-2022
- Academic Hardware Grant, NVIDIA 2018
- University of Missouri
- Award for Academic Distinction 2017
- Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Opportunity 2016
- Project Title: Investigating the Role of the Angiotensin II Type 2 Receptor in Protective Cardiac Remodeling
- Project Advisor: Lakshmi Pulakat
- Undergraduate Research Travel Award, Office of Undergraduate Research 2015
- Awarded to present at Experimental Biology - Boston
Skills
- Experimental
- Stereotactic rodent surgeries, chronic implantation of multielectrode bundles and optical fibers
- Software
- Python, R, MATLAB, and Linux. MySQL and PostgreSQL (pgAdmin4, psycopg2). Experience working with computing cluster environments at Brandeis and at XSEDE (Jetstream)
- Modeling
- Machine Learning: Standard models for regression/classification, probabilistic graphical models (time-series models like HMMs and changepoint models), Bayesian inference (including nonparametric priors with MCMC and black-box variational inference)
- Statistics: Frequentist techniques (parametric/non-parametric), Bayesian statistics (Hierarchical models, MCMC), computational neuroscience models (e.g, point-process models, drift-diffusion model of decision-making).
- Frameworks: numpy, scipy, scikit-learn, Tensorflow/Keras, PyMC3
