Abha Karki Rajbhandari, PhD
Assistant Professor
Departments of Psychiatry
and Neuroscience
Friedman Brain Institute
Brain and Body Research Institute
Center for Affective Neuroscience
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Email: [email protected]
Lab Page: https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/karkilab/
Dr. Rajbhandari is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Psychiatry and
Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Rajbhandari obtained her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied the role of the amygdala sub-regions in regulation of stress and sensorimotor gating via norepinephrine and the neuropeptide- corticotropin releasing factor. Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Rajbhandari was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California-Los Angeles, where her research focused on understanding the role of the neuropeptide, pituitary adenylate cyclase activating peptide in regulation of fear and stress behaviors via amygdala sub-regions. At the Icahn School of Medicine. Dr. Rajbhandari’s team focuses on the brain, vagus nerve and body mechanisms of fear, stress, and anxiety.
Outside of lab, Dr. Rajbhandari is a whole-body health enthusiast and spiritual seeker through Yoga and Vedanta. For her, yoga is not just something done on a mat; it is woven into every aspect of life. Born in Nepal, she moved to the United States to pursue higher education. While her spiritual journey began in Nepal, she continues to explore deep questions about human existence through the lenses of logic, reasoning, knowledge, and mysticism. Abha is passionate about bridging the gap between scientific and spiritual understandings of life.

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