R Vignayanandam Muddapu
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases
- Corticobasal ganglia loops
- Attention and memory
- Neuroimaging
- Multiscale modelling
- Reinforcement learning
- Machine learning
- Computational neuroscience
- Systems biology
Biography
Prior joining the university, Vignan was a postdoctoral fellow and Science Lead (for basal ganglia project) at the Blue Brain Project, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (BBP-EPFL), where he worked for four years as part of the Circuits team. He focused on building, curating, validating, and simulating different brain regions to understand their involvement systems-level activity. During his tenure at BBP, he worked with Henry Markram, Armando Romani and Jeanette Hellgren Kotaleski.
He has completed his doctoral thesis (PhD in Computational Neuroscience) under supervision of V Srinivasa Chakravarthy from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras) where he explored the causes of critical neuronal loss in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. While with IIT-Madras, he led the Basal Ganglia team at the Computational Neuroscience Lab to investigate the role of basal ganglia in different brain functions. He aimed to hypothesise an integrative theory of neurodegeneration and develop patient-specific framework for testing disease-modifying therapeutics using multiscale modelling.
By training, he has an integrated master’s in Systems Biology from the University of Hyderabad, with expertise in computational modelling, data analysis, and interdisciplinary research. He has published multiple peer-reviewed papers and presented his research at national and international conferences.
His academic journey from being a curious science guy to transcending into a methodological researcher has been an excellent experience. Now, he is even more passionate about advancing neuroscience research, contributing to the global scientific community, and improving neuroscience pedagogy.
Vignan enjoys swimming, sketching, reading, yoga, etc.
Publications
Journal Articles
- Dimitriadis S.I., Muddapu, V.R., Guidotti R. (2024). Editorial: Reproducible analysis in neuroscience, Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 18:1520012. https://doi.org/10.3389/fninf.2024.1520012
- Nair S.S., Muddapu, V.R., Chandrasekaran V., Balasubramani P.P., Mishra J., Ramanathan D.S., Chakravarthy V.S. (2023). A generalized reinforcement learning-based deep neural network agent model for diverse cognitive constructs, Scientific Reports, 13:5928. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023 – 32234‑y
- Iavarone, E., Simko, J., Shi, Y., Bertschy, M., García-Amado, M., Litvak, P., Kaufmann, A.-K., O’Reilly, C., Amsalem, O., Abdellah, M., Chevtchenko, G., Coste, B., Courcol, J.-D., Ecker, A., Favreau, C., Fleury, A.C., Geit, W. Van, Gevaert, M., Guerrero, N.R., Herttuainen, J., Ivaska, G., Kerrien, S., King, J.G., Kumbhar, P., Lurie, P., Magkanaris, I., Muddapu, V.R., Nair, J., Pereira, F.L., Perin, R., Petitjean, F., Ranjan, R., Reimann, M., Soltuzu, L., Sy, M.F., Tuncel, M.A., Ulbrich, A., Wolf, M., Clascá, F., Markram, H., & Hill, S.L. (2023). Thalamic control of sensory processing and spindles in a biophysical somatosensory thalamoreticular circuit model of wakefulness and sleep, Cell Reports, 42:112200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112200
- Muddapu, V.R., Vijayakumar, K., Ramakrishnan, K. & Chakravarthy, V.S. (2022). A computational model of levodopa-induced toxicity in substantia nigra pars compacta in Parkinson’s disease, Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16:797127. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.797127
- Nair, S.S., Muddapu, V.R., & Chakravarthy, V.S. (2022). A multiscale, systems-level, neuropharmacological model of cortico-basal ganglia system for arm reaching under normal, Parkinsonian, and levodopa medication conditions, Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 15:756881. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2021.756881
- Muddapu, V.R., & Chakravarthy, V.S. (2021). Influence of energy deficiency on the molecular processes of substantia nigra pars compacta cell for understanding Parkinsonian neurodegeneration — A comprehensive biophysical computational model, Scientific Reports, 11:1754. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021 – 81185‑9
- Muddapu, V.R., & Chakravarthy, V.S. (2020). A multi-scale computational model of excitotoxic loss of dopaminergic cells in Parkinson’s disease, Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 14:34. https://doi.org/10.3389/fninf.2020.00034
- Muddapu, V.R., Dharshini, S.A.P., Chakravarthy, V.S., & Gromiha M.M. (2020). Neurodegenerative diseases: Is metabolic deficiency the root cause?, Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14:213. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00213
- Muddapu, V.R., Mandali, A., Chakravarthy, V.S. & Ramaswamy, S. (2019). A computational model of loss of dopaminergic cells in Parkinson’s disease due to glutamate-induced excitotoxicity, Frontiers in Neural Circuits, 13:11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2019.00011
Patent
- Chakravarthy, V.S., Muddapu, V.R., & Nair, S.S. (2024). Multiscale systems neuropharmacological model of cortico-basal ganglia circuitry of reaching for normal and Parkinson’s disease. (India Patent # 518500: Granted in 2024) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yx66YLq250BgHYVDkCdn7y6d36BAhkj9/view?usp=sharing
Book Chapter
Nair, S.S., Muddapu, V.R., Sriram, M., R., A., Gupta, R. & Chakravarthy, V.S. (2022). Is There a Better Way to Assess Parkinsonian Motor Symptoms? — Experimental and Modelling Approach, In: Arjunan S.P., Kumar D.K. (eds) Techniques for Assessment of Parkinsonism for Diagnosis and Rehabilitation. Series in BioEngineering. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978 – 981-16 – 3056-9_10