Mahboubeh Ahmadi, a UC Riverside postdoctoral researcher in molecular, cell, and systems biology, has been named a recipient of the Taking Flight Award from CURE Epilepsy.
The competitive research funding award, which Ahmadi received in September 2025, supports innovative early-career investigators. It provides her $125,000 over 18 months to work on understanding circuit mechanisms that drive epilepsy and its associated behavioral comorbidities.
Ahmadi joined Viji Santhakumar’s laboratory at UC Riverside in September 2023 after earning her doctoral degree from Tarbiat Modares University in Iran. Her research centers on hippocampal circuit mechanisms underlying epilepsy, with a particular focus on CCK interneurons in the dentate gyrus, which are inhibitory brain cells that help regulate the balance between excitation and inhibition. Because this balance is often disrupted in epilepsy, studying how these cells function — and malfunction — can reveal how seizures arise and how they might be better controlled.
“My project aims to determine how epilepsy alters CCK interneuron function and whether restoring their activity can reduce seizures while improving memory, motivation, and behavior,” Ahmadi said. “Because these interneurons interact closely with the brain’s cannabinoid system, the work may reveal promising new targets for therapeutic intervention.”
Trained in electrophysiology, optogenetics, and immunohistochemistry during her doctoral work, Ahmadi has investigated the role of dopamine in synaptic plasticity and spatial memory following epilepsy. Her postdoctoral training expanded her expertise to include patch-clamp electrophysiology, two-photon imaging, and behavioral analyses across hippocampal subregions such as CA3 and CA2 in models of epilepsy and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Ahmadi said the CURE Epilepsy award will directly support this line of research and expressed her gratitude to Santhakumar, a professor of molecular cell and systems biology, for mentorship and support.
Santhakumar praised Ahmadi for her “strong record of academic excellence, despite facing systematic discrimination in her home country.”
“Mahboubeh has forged a path towards research independence through skill, grit and determination,” she said. “She is a thoughtful and innovative scientist who is focused on understanding and alleviating behavioral impacts of epilepsy. She is well on her way to research independence and is richly deserving of the CURE Taking flight Award.”
Founded in 1998, CURE Epilepsy is a nonprofit dedicated to funding breakthrough research to transform the lives of people with epilepsy.