Amir ebneabbasi
I’m Amir, a PhD student in Clinical Neuroscience. Broadly, I’m interested in understanding how genetic and environmental factors shape the organisation of brain structure and function. I’m fortunate to be working closely with Tim Rittman, James Rowe, Richard Bethlehem, and Varun Warrier on these questions.
I’ve been involved in several projects throughout my PhD. The first was an intense but rewarding journey into database management under the supervision of Tim Rittman. As part of this work, I built the first version of an SQL database and helped curate imaging, blood, and clinical data for the Cambridge Centre for Parkinson-plus Diseases. The second project was a collaboration with David Whiteside, where we conducted a GWAS of brain dynamics derived from Hidden Markov Models using UK Biobank data. I then worked with Yuanjun Gu on investigating the molecular and cellular foundations of image-derived phenotypes across both the UK Biobank and ABCD datasets. More recently, I’ve been collaborating with Yuankai He to study the genetics of cortical expansion across six major psychiatric disorders. We’re now hoping to extend a similar framework to neurological diseases in collaboration with Jake Vogel.
Overall, my work sits at the intersection of neuroimaging, genetics, and computational neuroscience. I’m always happy to chat about new ideas, exciting datasets, and potential collaborations.