Baburam Bhattarai

Baburam Bhattarai is a Researcher and Postdoctoral Associate affiliated with the Dragoi Lab at the Yale School of Medicine, Yale University. His research focuses on understanding hippocampal and prefrontal mechanisms underlying learning, spatial navigation, and reward processing. He holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from KAIST (2020). His work explores neural coding in spatial sequences, reward effects on hippocampal replays, and schema-based learning processes.

Education:

• PhD in Biological Sciences, KAIST (2020)

Research Interests: Bhattarai investigates how the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex encode spatial information, process reward signals, and form memory schemas. His studies employ electrophysiological techniques to analyze neural activity during navigation tasks and reward-based decision-making. Key areas include temporal coding in neural ensembles, the role of hippocampal replays in consolidating spatial experiences, and the interplay between reward history and spatial cognition.

Publications: His recent work highlights dissociable effects of reward and navigation history on hippocampal forward/reverse replays (2020, 2018), spatial-sequence coding in CA1 neurons (2016), and schema-based learning mechanisms (2023). These studies advance understanding of how neural circuits integrate spatial and reward information for adaptive behavior.

Labs & Teams: Active in the Dragoi Lab, which specializes in systems neuroscience and neural mechanisms of memory. Collaborates on projects analyzing large-scale neuronal ensemble activity during spatial and cognitive tasks.