Zarmeen Zahid, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Zarmeen Zahid is a post-doctoral fellow at the CPCR under the direction of Dr. Sandeep Nayak and Dr. David Yaden. She completed her PhD in neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin – Madison under the direction of Dr. Matthew Banks and Dr. Cody Wenthur. Zarmeen’s graduate school work looked to elucidate the neurobiological mechanism of serotonergic psychedelic drugs, specifically examining changes in synaptic plasticity. Zarmeen used various electrophysiological and behavioral pharmacological techniques in a preclinical rodent model to demonstrate the presence of acute and post-acute synaptic plasticity and metaplasticity in regions relevant to stress-induced disorder pathophysiology. In her post-doctoral training, she hopes to leverage the use of functional neuroimaging, cognitive tasks, and other techniques to better understand the plasticity mechanisms of serotonergic psychedelics in clinical and non-clinical populations. She also aims to understand the neural mechanism of subjective effects in the altered states of consciousness produced by psychedelics.