Have you ever thought about what happens to your brain when you have stress and experiences you never anticipated? You ponder round and round, unable to understand why something changes in you. Well, you might want to take a look at what Prof Vidita Vaidya has been up to.

She is one sparkling gem among other scientists who are constantly breaking through the science in the search for answers that may look impossible. Prof Vaidya is working in Neuroscience on neuro-circuitry to understand how emotions, moods, and experiences contribute to behavioural changes. Her team is working to identify the hallmarks of altered emotional neural circuits of the brain using cells and genes. These alterations underlie some major psychiatric disorders such as depression.

Our lifestyles are evolving faster and demand much of our time and attention. We are struggling to survive and on this journey, working and paying the bills is a challenging criterion. Daily life stress impacts heavily on our tiny brain circuits. It causes us to be dependable on antidepressants. Prof. Vaidya is also studying how the cells are adapting to the sustained antidepressants drugs.

In December 2019, she successfully bagged three crores of the research grant amount for her research on biosciences as the only female scientist at TATA Institute of Fundamental Research.

In an interview with The Economictimes, she mentions her interest in behavioural changes since her childhood. Following this, she grew up watching documentaries on primatology and pursued her career studying chimpanzees and gorillas. After that, she earned her PhD from Yale at 29.

She was honoured from National Bioscience Award in 2012 to the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in 2015. It is such pride to see Indian female scientists holding the grip of science.

Picture source- TIFR, Mumbai.