Dr. Santhakumar’s research examines the effects of interneuronal microcircuit plasticity in epilepsy and hippocampal pathophysiology after brain injury and has advanced our understanding of how changes in regulation circuit firing between neurons plays a role in the development of epilepsy. This project seeks to explore a novel neural processing mechanism in the hippocampal dentate gyrus (a circuit severely impacted in temporal lobe epilepsies) contributing to cognitive comorbidities in epilepsy. Through this work, her team will seek to identify mechanisms of memory processing in the hippocampus and how they are changed through the altered circuits seen in epilepsy and to further knowledge on memory processing and decline in aging and Alzheimer’s Disease.