Rate My Professor Dipesh Chaudhury

Dipesh Chaudhury is Associate Professor of Biology and Global Network Assistant Professor of Biology at New York University Abu Dhabi, positions he has held since joining the Biology faculty in Spring 2015. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of London School of Pharmacy and a PhD from the Open University in the United Kingdom, where he was supervised by Professor Steven Rose. Prior to his current role, Chaudhury conducted postdoctoral research and served as an associate scientist at several leading institutions: the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Marseille, France, Cornell University, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, all in the United States.

Chaudhury's primary academic interests lie in elucidating the pathophysiological changes in neural circuit functions that underlie mood disorders and memory loss. As the principal investigator of the Laboratory of Neural Systems and Behavior at NYU Abu Dhabi, he employs a multidisciplinary approach incorporating rodent behavioral models of depression, optogenetics, in vitro electrophysiology, and calcium imaging to investigate these neural mechanisms. His research has produced several landmark publications in premier journals. Notable works include "Enhancing depression mechanisms in midbrain dopamine neurons achieves homeostatic resilience" published in Science in 2014, "Basal forebrain projections to the lateral habenula modulate aggression reward" in Nature in 2016, "KCNQ channel openers reverse depressive symptoms via an active resilience mechanism" in Nature Communications in 2016, "Ventral hippocampal afferents to the nucleus accumbens regulate susceptibility to depression" in Nature Communications in 2015, and "Neuronal correlates of depression" in Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences in 2015. Additionally, he has authored book chapters such as "Understanding Mood Disorders Using Electrophysiology and Circuit Breaking" in 2017 and "Regulation and modulation of depression-related behaviors: Role of dopaminergic neurons" in Dopamine and Sleep in 2016.

In recent studies, Chaudhury's team demonstrated that abnormal sleep architecture, particularly fragmented sleep patterns, serves as a predictor of vulnerability to chronic social stress, deepening insights into the bidirectional relationship between sleep disturbances and mood disorders. This work, published in 2021, highlights the potential of sleep monitoring as a biomarker for stress susceptibility.