Nilapratim Sengupta, PhD

Dr. Sengupta (he/him/his) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, mentored by Prof. Jennifer Luebke. Dr. Sengupta was trained in Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering during his bachelor’s, following which he was employed as a Systems Engineer. He then changed gears to pursue his post-graduate and doctoral degrees in Biomedical Engineering from IIT Bombay (India), focusing on modeling synaptic potentials in 3D smooth muscle syncytia.

Currently Dr. Sengupta is engaged in studying altered action potential propagation in cortical pyramidal neurons caused by age-induced myelin dystrophies, using biophysically detailed compartmental models. The action potential firing activity of these neurons in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) of rhesus monkeys is crucial for their spatial working memory. These neurons undergo structural and physiological changes with aging, some of which are associated with cognitive decline.