SBMS Trainee: Kimberly Nnah
I am a rising third year doctoral student in the Program in Neuroscience (PiN). I obtained a B.S in Integrative Neuroscience from Binghamton University in 2018. My undergrad research project probed neural pathways related to taste that contribute to changed taste preferences after gastric bypass surgery. That exposure led me to become a research technician at Johns Hopkins University, studying the behavioral and cognitive correlates of the hippocampus in the formation and storage of long-term memory. Now in the lab of Dr. Stella Tsirka, I investigate how the immune system along the gut-brain axis modulates the manifestation of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), in an animal model of repeated stress. As part of the SBMS program, I'm working with Dr. Olga Aroniadis to investigate the intersection between antidepressant use and clinical outcomes for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), an illness comorbid with MDD. Since the brain and gut communicate bidirectionally, future clinical interventions could isolate and target both IBD and neuroinflammation (in the context of psychiatric disease), thus circumnavigating the need for multiple types of therapeutics.
