Email

am35@bcm.edu

Positions

Neurophysiology Fellow

Neurology
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas

Basic Neuroscience Research Pathway

Pediatric Neurology and Developmental Neuroscience
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX US

Education

MD-PhD from Northwestern University

Chicago

Neuroscience, basal ganglia, synaptic plasticity

BS from University of Texas, El Paso

El Paso

Applied mathematics / Microbiology

Professional Statement

Dr. Melendez-Zaidi is a pediatric neurology resident in the basic neuroscience track with interests in intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), genetic epilepsy and movement disorders, and neuromuscular disease. She will pursue her last year of training in the laboratory of Dr. Mingshan Xue investigating the role of various synaptic proteins in the development of epilepsy and IDD.

Selected Publications

• Melendez-Zaidi AE, Lakshminarasimhah H, Surmeier DJ "Cholinergic modulation of striatal nitric oxide-producing interneurons." Eur J Neurosci. 2019;50(11):3713-31. Pubmed PMID: 31340071
• Carrillo-Reid L, Day M, Xie Z, Melendez AE, Kondapalli J, Plotkin JL, et al. "Mutant huntingtin enhances activation of dendritic Kv4 K + channels in striatal spiny projection neurons." elife. 2019;8 Pubmed PMID: 31017573
• Tanimura A, Pancani T, Lim SAO, Tubert C, Melendez AE, Shen W, et al. "Striatal cholinergic interneurons and Parkinson's disease." Eur J Neurosci. 2018;47(10):1148-58. Pubmed PMID: 28677242
• Rafalovich IV, Melendez AE, Plotkin JL, Tanimura A, Zhai S, Surmeier DJ "Interneuronal nitric oxide signaling mediates post-synaptic long-term depression of striatal glutamatergic synapses." Cell Rep. 2015;13(7):1336-42. Pubmed PMID: 26549446