Bita Moghaddam

Bita Moghaddam is an Iranian-American neuroscientist and author. She is currently the professor of behavioral neuroscience and psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University. Moghaddam investigates the neuronal processes underlying emotion and cognition as a first step to designing strategies to treat and prevent brain illnesses.

Early life and education Moghaddam (born 1962) grew up in Iran with her mother, father, and sister. She was raised in an environment where her parents emphasized the importance of education. Under the mentorship of Dr. Ralph Adams, Moghaddam could learn from a pioneer in the field, how to build and apply electroanalytical tools to study dopamine.

During her PhD, Moghaddam worked on improving graphite electrodes for in vivo electrochemical experiments studying cationic primary neurotransmitters. In 1986, Moghaddam published a first author paper in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences describing her improvements of the in vivo voltammetry method for applications in neuroscience. Moghaddam then published another first author paper highlighting her findings, using potassium-selective microelectrodes, that extracellular potassium concentrations vary across brain regions. In 1987, Moghaddam completed her dissertation in which she simultaneously recorded the extracellular levels of both ions and neurotransmitters in the mammalian brain. After her PhD, Moghaddam pursued her postdoctoral training at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. At Yale, Moghaddam worked under the mentorship of Dr. Benjamin Bunney in the Department of Psychiatry exploring the modulatory effects of dopaminergic signalling in the striatum. Moghaddam published 6 first author papers during her three-year postdoctoral studies. Moghaddam used the technique of in vivo microdialysis to look at the composition of extracellular dopamine in the rodent brain in various experimental preparations. She first discovered that the cocaine administration in rodents induced a higher magnitude increase in extracellular dopamine in the Nucleus Accumbens compared to the Medial Prefrontal Cortex. Just before she began her faculty position at Yale, Moghaddam published another first author paper in the Journal of Neurochemistry reporting that administration of different antipsychotic drugs to rats has distinct effects on the release of dopamine in the Prefrontal Cortex, Nucleus Accumbens and the Striatum.

Career and research In 1990, Moghaddam started her first faculty position at Yale University in the Department of Psychiatry. In a study published in Biological Psychiatry in 1991, the Moghaddam lab reported that Ventral Tegmental Area dopamine neurons are activated both before stimulus onset, signifying an internal state of anticipation, in addition to firing in response to rewarding post-stimulus outcomes. Moghaddam continued to collaborate with her postdoctoral mentor and others at Yale to explore the effects of typical schizophrenia medications on brain chemistry in vivo.

As a young professor at Yale, Moghaddam started to focus on the potential that aberrant glutamate signaling might be a large contributing factor to the pathology of schizophrenia, so she began to explore glutamate regulation and modulatory effects of glutamate in the brain regions associated with schizophrenia. A few years later, she found that metabotropic glutamate receptors regulate dopamine release in the striatum, adding to the understanding of the diverse interactions between glutamate and dopaminergic system in the brain. She also made a novel finding regarding the regulation of glutamate release during times of stress, such that glucocorticoids, released as a result of HPA axis activation, inhibit the stress-induced output of glutamate in the prefrontal cortex. In 1998, Moghaddam's lab reported that the compound LY354740, a metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist, suppresses aberrant glutamate release and reduces behavioral disruptions in animals given PCP or ketamine.

In 2003, Moghaddam was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh.

In 2017, Moghaddam joined the faculty at the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) as the Chair of the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience. Moghaddam continues to probe the brain mechanisms involved in cognition and emotion in brain areas implicated in schizophrenia, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and addiction, while also performing leaderships roles. In addition to her laboratory and departmental efforts, Moghaddam brings extensive teaching and mentoring experience, and participates in a large array of outreach efforts and initiatives to promote women in science and young trainees to pursue careers in science. Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacology Neuroscience Basic Research Award Moghaddam, B. and Gur, R.E. (2015). Women at the Podium: ACNP Strives to Reach Speaker Gender Equality at the Annual Meeting. Neuropsychopharmacology, 41(4):929-31. Psychology Today, 17 March 2016, “How Does Anxiety Short Circuit the Decision-Making Process?” Forbes, 29 October 2012, “New Study Shows that Omega-3 Supplements Can Boost Memory in Young Adults.” March 2016, “Women at the Podium: ACNP Strives to Reach Speaker Gender Equality at the Annual Meeting.” SfN's first-ever podcast on "The Perils of Publishing" The Nation, 23 Mar 2022, “Breaking Off My Chemical Romance.” "

This is Critical, 22 Jan 2021, “Is Ketamine all it's cracked up to be?” " Personal life Moghaddam's father is from the city of Touyserkan and her mother from Tehran. Her father received a law degree from the University of Tehran in 1959 and served in the district attorney's office and then a judge for several decades. He is the author of several books in his native Persian including “Touyserkan” تويسركان on the history and culture of his birthplace. Moghaddam has been married to neuroscientist Charles W Bradberry since 1989. They have two children, Mazdak and Anahita.