Vidhya D. Kumaresan, PhD

Assistant Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

Dr. Kumaresan’s expertise is in behavioral neuropharmacology. Dr. Kumaresan studies the neurobiological underpinnings of addiction using cellular, molecular and behavioral methods. The overall research objective is to study neuronal activity-dependent plasticity and its relevance for brain disorders. The current focus is to understand the neurobiological bases of addiction to psychostimulants. Recidivism to drug abuse is a major hurdle in the successful treatment of addiction. Illicit drug use usurps neural circuits involved in survival enhancing behaviors. The goal is to elucidate the cellular and molecular underpinnings of drug-induced enduring neural plasticity in these circuits using a combination of behavioral, cellular and molecular approaches. In particular, Dr. Kumaresan employs a novel approach of using cell-permeable peptides that disrupt protein-protein interactions in vivo in order to study ongoing behavior. These approaches are expected to lead to successful treatment of relapse precipitated by drug re-exposure, drug-associated cues and stress. Knowledge gained from these studies will also be applicable to the treatment of other brain dysfunctions involving persistent memories such as PTSD. Research techniques used include: immunocytochemistry, western blots, operant conditioning methods and site-specific intracranial microinjections of pharmacological reagents, viral vectors encoding specific constructs designed to interfere with protein-protein interactions and cell permeable peptides.

Publications

  • Published 8/12/2025

    Gupta K, Kumaresan V. Biomarker signatures for sickle cell pain. Blood Adv. 2025 Aug 12; 9(15):3821-3823. PMID: 40711774.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 5/5/2023

    Kumaresan V, Lim Y, Juneja P, Tipton AE, de Guglielmo G, Carrette LLG, Kallupi M, Maturin L, Liu Y, George O, Zhang H. Abstinence from Escalation of Cocaine Intake Changes the microRNA Landscape in the Cortico-Accumbal Pathway. Biomedicines. 2023 May 05; 11(5). PMID: 37239038.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 9/1/2021

    Ratner MH, Downing SS, Guo O, Odamah KE, Stewart TM, Kumaresan V, Robitsek RJ, Xia W, Farb DH. Prodromal dysfunction of a5GABA-A receptor modulated hippocampal ripples occurs prior to neurodegeneration in the TgF344-AD rat model of Alzheimer's disease. Heliyon. 2021 Sep; 7(9):e07895. PMID: 34568591.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 11/17/2020

    Moazzam M, Yim T, Kumaresan V, Henderson DC, Farrer LA, Zhang H. Analysis of telomere length variation and Shelterin complex subunit gene expression changes in ethanol-exposed human embryonic stem cells. J Psychiatr Res. 2021 11; 143:543-549. PMID: 33243459.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 4/9/2019

    Ratner MH, Kumaresan V, Farb DH. Neurosteroid Actions in Memory and Neurologic/Neuropsychiatric Disorders. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2019; 10:169. PMID: 31024441.

    Read at: PubMed

View All 12 Publications:   View Full Profile in BUMC

Websites

Education

  • University of Rhode Island, PhD
  • University of Rhode Island, MS
  • University of Madras, BS

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