My research area spans from understanding the developing brain to the pathophysiology of various psychiatric illness. I am interested in the neurodevelopment process including neurogenesis and synaptogenesis and how the environmental factor could influence the neural circuitry in the early phase of brain development. Thus, emphasizing on the role of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity during brain development. My current laboratory studies various animal model both in rat and mice associated with stress, anxiety and addiction. I am focusing on the epigenetic regulation of these various animal models. We observe changes in two levels. First we evaluate the global changes in the levels of various post-translated modified histone proteins and second we assess the interaction of the post-translated modified histones with various gene of interest. To begin with we have focused on stress-related genes including glucocorticoid receptor, mineralocorticoid receptor, Corticotropin-releasing hormone. I am also studying human postmortem of different psychiatric disorder including major depressive disorder (MDD), schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to correlate the pragmatic epigenetic modification in the animal model. We are also focusing on one of the growth factor FGF2 (fibroblast growth factor 2) as our human microarray data we have found a decreased levels of FGF2 in MDD. Thus my research is aiming to observe the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorder including some of the psychiatric disorder like autism, schizophrenia and elucidate the role of activity driven changes in functions like synaptic plasticity for therapeutics. Keywords: Neurodevelopment, environmental stimulation, psychiatric disorder, epigenetics