Dr. Pramod KC
I grew up in Nepal and received my Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Kathmandu University, Nepal. After working in the pharmaceutical company for 2 years, I got an opportunity to study neuroscience at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway for my master’s degree. My enthusiasm about the neural system in insects has greatly escalated ever since I did my master thesis at the chemosensory lab, NTNU.
I did my PhD at the same lab where I utilized adult cotton bollworm Helicoverpa armigera as the model organism to unravel the neural principles typifying the CO2 pathway from the periphery to higher brain centers using various experimental techniques such as sharp electrode for intracellular recordings of individual neuron, mass staining, and the calcium imaging. Having investigated the morphological characteristics of an individual neuron and neuronal assemblies in moths, I am fascinated how different neurons tuned to the sensory modalities are circuited together to initiate the behavior. Here I am at the Riffell lab as the newly recruited postdoctoral fellow exploring the multi-sensory integration, particularly visual and olfactory, in the brain of sphinx moth, Manduca sexta.
In my spare time, I enjoy playing with my two kids and watching soccer.