Email

vkrish@bcm.edu

Positions

Assistant Professor

Neurology, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Baylor College of Medicine

Principal Investigator

Laboratory of Epilepsy and Emotional Behavior
Baylor College of Medicine

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Electrical and Computer Engineering
Rice University

Addresses

Laboratory of Epilepsy and Emotional Behavior (Lab)

6550 Fannin St Smith Tower
Neurosensory BCM NA200
Houston, TX 77030
United States

Baylor College of Medicine Medical Center (Clinic)

7200 Cambridge St
9th Floor
Houston, TX 77030
United States

Education

BS from New York University

05/2003 - NY, New York United States

Neuroscience (Hons), Chemistry

MD-PhD from University of Texas Southwestern Med. Center Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP)

06/2010 - Dallas, Texas United States

PhD: Behavioral Neuroscience, Molecular Neuroplasticity

Internship at Parkland Memorial Hospital/University of Texas Southwestern

06/2011 - Dallas, Texas United States

Internal Medicine

Residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

06/2014 - Boston, Massachusetts United States

Adult Neurology

Postdoctoral Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

06/2016 - Boston, Massachusetts United States

Seizures and autism-related behavior, mouse models of autism and epilepsy

Clinical Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

06/2016 - Boston, Massachusetts United States

Clinical Neurophysiology and Epilepsy

Certifications

Adult Neurology (2014)

American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Clinical Neurophysiology (2017)

American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Epilepsy Medicine (2018)

American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

Honors & Awards

Outstanding Resident Teaching Award

Harvard Medical School (07/2013)

NINDS R25 Award

National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (01/2014 - 06/2015)

Clinical Research Training Fellowship in Epilepsy

American Academy of Neurology, American Brain Foundation (07/2016 - 08/2018)

Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award K08

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (04/2019 - 03/2024)

Junior Faculty Seed Grant

Curtis Hankamer Basic Research Fund (07/2019 - 06/2020)

Junior Investigator Award

American Epilepsy Society (10/2020 - 09/2021)

Mike Hogg Fund Award

The Mike Hogg Fund (02/2021 - 01/2022)

Gulf Coast Center for Precision Health Pilot Award

P30ES030285 (01/2022 - 01/2023)

Fellow of the American Epilepsy Society (FAES)

AES (12/2022)

Professional Interests

• Epilepsy and Mental Health Disorders
• Comorbid Epileptic and Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures
• Comorbid treatment-refractory depression AND epilepsy
• Behavioral Phenotyping in Mouse Models of Neuropsychiatric Illness
• Home Cage Monitoring
• Actigraphy and Neuropsychiatric Disability

Professional Statement

I am proud to be a physician-scientist at the Baylor College of Medicine’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and the Peter Kellaway Section of Clinical Neurophysiology. In the clinical domain, I am an adult neurologist with subspecialty expertise in the treatment of epilepsy and related disorders (such as functional/psychogenic seizures). As a board-certified clinical neurophysiologist, I read and interpret clinical electroencephalography (EEG) and other intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring studies. My clinical interests focus on caring for patients with epilepsy who are affected by one or more psychiatric comorbidities (including depression, psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders and autism), a neurobiological niche that is the scientific focus of my basic science laboratory. In addition to bedside and EEG lab-side teaching, I formally participate in didactic education for medical, graduate and undergraduate students. My prior research focused on applying systems neuroscience to study mouse models of neuropsychiatric disease. For my PhD at the UTSouthwestern Medical Scientist Training Program, I examined how specific molecular changes in mesolimbic dopamine neurons underlie whether a mouse may display a vulnerable or resilient behavioral profile following repeated social stress. During and after residency/fellowship training at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, I returned to the bench to explore how recurrent seizures induce cascades of neuroplasticity that function to impede sociability/social drive. Today, my laboratory’s research program combines multimodal behavioral telemetry in mice and wearable technologies in patient volunteers to study how seizures, seizure risk (epilepsy) and antiseizure treatments impact spontaneous behavior. This work seeks to improve on treatments for epilepsy spectrum disorders by devising new, translationally fluid behavioral endpoints designed to tease out the determinants of interictal behavior. In doing so, our research defines a new quantitative and objective approach to ascertain the mental status of a mouse.

Websites

Selected Publications

• Schirmer C, Abboud MA, Lee SC, Bass JS, Mazumder AG, Kamen JL, Krishnan V. "Home-cage behavior in the Stargazer mutant mouse." Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 27; Pubmed PMID: 35896608
• Bass JS, Tuo AH, Ton LT, Jankovic MJ, Kapadia PK, Schirmer C, Krishnan V "On the Digital Psychopharmacology of Valproic Acid in Mice." Front Neurosci. 2020 Nov 6;14:594612. Pubmed PMID: 33240040
• Krishnan V "Depression and Anxiety in the Epilepsies: from Bench to Bedside." Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep. 2020; Pubmed PMID: 32666148
• Jankovic MJ, Kapadia PP, Krishnan V "Home-cage monitoring ascertains signatures of ictal and interictal behavior in mouse models of generalized seizures.." PLoS One. 2019; Pubmed PMID: 31697745

Memberships

American Academy of Neurology

American Epilepsy Society

NINDS/AES Epilepsy Benchmark Stewards Committee

AES Committee on Psychosocial Comorbidities of Epilepsy