ABSTRACT
First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Biology Open, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Tiyasha Sarkar is first author on ‘Neuronal changes and cognitive deficits in a multi-hit rat model following cumulative impact of early life stressors’, published in BiO. Tiyasha is a PhD scholar in the lab of Professor Ishan Kumar Patro at the School of Studies in Neuroscience, Jiwaji University Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India, investigating the correlation between multiple early life stressors and later life neurological disorders.
Tiyasha Sarkar
What is your scientific background and the general focus of your lab?
Our lab deals with the effect of major early-life stressors like toxins, protein malnourishment, and viral and bacterial infections on the nervous system. The long-term consequences of such stressors on the brain as well as cognitive and behavioural abilities of the effected individuals are being studied with respect to cellular changes in the brain. Both singular and combined exposures of stressors (multi-hit) are used to study cellular, cognitive and behavioural changes in rat models.
How would you explain the main findings of your paper to non-scientific family and friends?
During the early years of an individual's life they are prone to various environmental insults like malnourishment, infections and toxins. Maternal protein malnourishment occurs in a majority of expecting mothers from poor socioeconomic countries, and children born to such mothers are immune compromised. Poor immunity makes the children susceptible to further viral and bacterial infections. All such stressors act synergistically and change the cellular architecture of the brain, leading to learning and memory deficiency in adult individuals, which might be the reason for the development of various later life neurological disorders.
What are the potential implications of these results for your field of research?
The majority of studies that are available only talk about a single type of stress and their effect on the nervous system. This is a vertical study that, for the very first time, reported the consequences of multiple stressors encountered simultaneously by an individual at an early age. This data will further help researchers to consider the overall scenario of conditions suffered by people belonging to low socioeconomic backgrounds, in which people suffer from more than one type of stressor simultaneously. This could help to find the proper link between early life stressors and later life neurological disorders.
What has surprised you the most while conducting your research?
The most surprising thing we noticed was the consequences of multi-hit. While everyone was talking about single stress, we found that multi-hit accelerated the cellular damage in brain many fold and could be the actual reason for the development of neurological disorders. Environmental insults work together in a cascade and change the cytoarchitecture of the brain, which further damages cognitive and behavioural abilities, the common phenotype of almost every neurological disorder.
“Environmental insults work together in a cascade and change the cytoarchitecture of the brain…”
What, in your opinion, are some of the greatest achievements in your field and how has this influenced your research?
The greatest achievements in our field will be the discovery of the cellular structures and the mechanisms how cells crosstalk and communicate. The more we see the more we want to explore and hence, the details of brain cells that are available helped us to understand the mechanism and how is it altered on any type of environmental insults.
Doublecortin (DCX) positive naive neurons in the cortex of adult rats treated with multiple early life stressors.
What changes do you think could improve the professional lives of early-career scientists?
Lowering stress levels and negative competition could definitely improve the professional lives of early-career scientists.
What's next for you?
After finishing my PhD, I want continue my research in the field of neuroscience and would like to work as a postdoc fellow.
Footnotes
Tiyasha Sarkar's contact details: School of Studies in Neuroscience Jiwaji University Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, 474001, India.
E-mail: tiyasha.sarkar8{at}gmail.com
- © 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
Reference
Article Navigation
Related articles
Cited by...
More in this TOC section
Similar articles
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
Biology Open and COVID-19
We are aware that the COVID-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on researchers worldwide. The Editors of all The Company of Biologists’ journals have been considering ways in which we can alleviate concerns that members of our community may have around publishing activities during this time. Read about the actions we are taking at this time.
Please don’t hesitate to contact the Editorial Office if you have any questions or concerns.
Future Leader Review - Cardiac myosin super relaxation
A new Future Leader Review by Manuel Schmid and Christopher Toepfer discusses the rapidly-expanding field of myosin super relaxation in the context of cardiovascular disease. Read the full Review and their accompanying interview.
Find out more about our Future Leader Reviews – they are an exclusive opportunity for early-career researchers who want to establish themselves in their field.
An interview with Roberta Azzarelli
In an interview, first author Roberta Azzarelli discusses her 3D model of glioblastoma and shares her thoughts on how to improve the professional lives of early-career researchers: formal mentorship programmes, a clearly structured career path and taking part in initiatives such as the Node Network.
News from our sister journals
Development continues to run a successful new webinar series, Development presents…, while Journal of Cell Science has recently welcomed Esperanza Agullo-Pascual as FocalPlane’s new Community Manager. Journal of Experimental Biology’s new special issue highlights the role of comparative biology in tackling climate change and Liz Patton, the new Editor-in-Chief of Disease Models & Mechanisms, sets out her visions and priorities.