Ipshita Zutshi

2025 Regional Award Finalist — Post-Doc

Ipshita Zutshi

Current Position:
Postdoctoral Fellow

Institution:
New York University School of Medicine

Discipline:
Neuroscience

Recognized for: Discovering how the brain integrates dynamic goals with sensory inputs (sound, vision etc.) to guide memory and decision-making — providing a framework for understanding cognitive dysfunction in psychiatric disorders.

Areas of Research Interest and Expertise:
Memory, Spatial Navigation, Cognition, Attention

Previous Positions:

PhD, University of California, San Diego (Advisor: Stefan Leutgeb)
MS, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (Advisor: Carmen Sandi)
MS, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India 
Summer Research Intern, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich (Advisor: Osborne Almeida)
Summer Research Intern, University of Wisconsin-Madison (Advisor: Ronald E. Kalil)
BEng, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India 

Research Summary:

Elucidating how the brain integrates complex inputs to guide behavior and memory remains a fundamental challenge. Dr. Ipshita Zutshi brings a fresh perspective through her work on the hippocampus, a region critical for planning and memory. She showed that, during goal-directed tasks, hippocampal signals do not mirror environmental stimuli but instead track an individual’s mental trajectory toward a goal. Zutshi further demonstrated that these signals arise from circuits whose contributions vary with brain state (e.g., wake vs. sleep). These findings offer a novel framework for understanding how goal-directed signals emerge with changing behavioral demands—and how this flexibility may be disrupted in neuropsychiatric disorders.

“I’m fascinated by how neural activity gives rise to our sense of reality—and how that shapes who we are. My research investigates the dynamic interplay between perception, memory, and action to understand how we construct meaning from the world around us. I’m deeply grateful to the Blavatnik Family Foundation for recognizing the value of curiosity-driven science and for celebrating the joy of simply asking how the brain works.”

Key Publications:

  1. I. Zutshi, A. Apostolelli, W. Yang, Z. Zheng, T. Dohi, E. Balzani, A.H. Williams, C. Savin, G. Buzsáki. Hippocampal neuronal activity is aligned with action plans. Nature, 2025.
  2. I. Zutshi, M. Valero, A. Fernández-Ruiz, G. Buzsáki. Extrinsic control and intrinsic computation in the hippocampal CA1 circuit. Neuron, 2022.
  3. I. Zutshi and G. Buzsáki. Hippocampal sharp wave ripples and their spike assembly content are regulated by the medial entorhinal cortex. Current Biology, 2023.
  4. I. Zutshi*, M.P. Brandon*, M.L. Fu, M Donegan, J.K. Leutgeb, and S. Leutgeb. Hippocampal neural circuits respond to optogenetic pacing of theta frequencies by generating accelerated oscillation frequencies. Current Biology, 2018.

Other Honors:

2023-2028 Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain Fellows to Faculty Award, Simons Foundation
2023 K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, NIMH (declined)
2023 NYU Outstanding Postdoc Award, NYU School of Medicine
2022 Finalist, Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation, Regeneron
2019-2021 Leon Levy Fellowship in Neuroscience, Leon Levy Foundation
2019 Finalist, Schmidt Science Fellows Program, Schmidt Family Foundation
2015-2018 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Student Research Fellowship, HHMI
2018 Biology Founding Faculty Award for Graduate Excellence, University of California San Diego
2012 Working Internships in Science Scholar, DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)
2011 Khorana Program for Scholars, Department of Biotechnology, India