My Perspective

Courting to survive, and to learn: an active-inference reading of the courtship–survival trade-off A classic life-history problem asks how an organism with a finite life should divide effort between surviving and reproducing. My earlier mathematical model of courtship versus survival [1] solved a two-year version by maximizing lifetime fitness over mating effort m , giving the optimal effort. So the key idea is invest hard now when survival is poor or mates are abundant now; conserve when the future is bright.  Natural selection shapes organisms whose internal models encode adaptive prior preferences. Expected free energy minimization therefore provides a mechanistic process theory for achieving fitness rather than replacing evolutionary theory. Hence, I recast the same problem as active inference i.e. action selection by minimization of expected free energy (EFE) and show two things. First, the classic optimum is recovered almost exactly as the pragmatic (preference-satisfying) l...

This 2011 Journal of Neuroscience paper [1] show dissociation between relative beat based timing localized to striatum and absolute duration based timing localized to cerebellum. Given this dissociation , I'm not convinced that olivo-cerebellar absolute timing framework subserves or finesses the striatal relative timing framework as proposed in the 2014 Frontiers papers [2]. Further evidence against the unified model is from the 2010 PNAS paper [3] on cerebellar atrophy patients (SCA-6) which shows intact beat based timing abilities but deficient ability for absolute duration estimation. If unified model of time perception is indeed correct then why does cerebellar atrophy spare beat based timing abilities and why is there a dissociation between the two timing mechanisms in fMRI? Further, there is no mention of SCN - suprachiasmatic nucleus -  which tracks day-night cycle.  So I think the two timing circuits are not unified but disparate mechanisms.   References : [1...

On Monday March 23rd 2026, Cambridge NeuroWorks held a workshop entitled "NeuroSparks: Developing Problem-Solving Neurotech Ideas" in Scotland Christof Gaunt, Innovation Pathway Manager at Cambridge NeuroWorks, led a session entitled "Identifying untapped opportunities, exploring early business ideas and refining your concept".  The aim of this session is to compress the 12-week process of finding a "Need" into a single hour of structured thinking. The first two stages of this six stage process pertains to identifying "why" where the goal is to find and screen a need. Next two "what" stages pertain to concept generation and screening it. Final two "How" stages pertain to strategy development and business planning. The road map is to first start with an initial idea based on a raw scientific concept. For instance hyper-mirroring causes distress in Misophonia from my own 2021 Journal of Neuroscience study.   Secondly focusing on...

Chronic pain affects millions of people and remains extremely challenging to treat. Because of this, researchers are trying to find reliable signals in the brain that could help us understand chronic pain better and guide new treatments. One such signal is called mismatch negativity (MMN) — a small, automatic brain response that occurs when we hear an unexpected sound. In our review paper [1], we looked at all the published studies that examined whether MMN changes in people with chronic pain. After searching major medical databases, we found 17 studies, of which 7 met our criteria for detailed analysis. These studies included people with a variety of long-lasting pain conditions, and one study used a controlled method to create a long-lasting pain sensation experimentally. Most studies measured either the size of the MMN response or the speed at which it occurred. Three studies found that people with chronic pain had smaller MMN responses , suggesting the brain may be less efficien...

Have you ever wondered how the brain makes sense of the sounds we hear—speech, music, or everyday noises? My latest review paper looks at a simple but important question: do humans and monkeys listen to the world in the same way? It turns out they don’t. Humans tend to combine and interpret sound over slightly longer periods of time, while monkeys rely more on short, quick snapshots of sound. These “listening windows” shape how each species understands the acoustic world. Humans, for example, benefit from longer windows because speech unfolds over hundreds of milliseconds and relies on patterns that stretch across time. The review brings together many studies using brain scans, electrical recordings, and computer models. When you compare all the evidence, a clear pattern appears: the architecture of the human auditory brain has evolved to integrate sound over longer timescales than that of macaques or marmosets. This difference likely helped support the emergence of speech and other co...

I am presenting my first attempt at creating a new Sanskrit shloka which presents a riddle.  Try to solve this riddle. Here is my attempt at modifying an original verse that was taught to us in Parichaya module to create a similar riddle but rooted in a mythological context while still keeping prosody (छन्दस्) in mind Riddle : गुरूणा कथितं, छात्र, श्लोकं लिख ममाज्ञया | न तेन लिखितः श्लोकः, शिक्षकाज्ञा न लङ्घिता || Translation : A teacher (Sage Veda Vyasa) asked his student (Shri Ganesha) to write a verse (for his epic Mahabharata) according to his directions. Neither he wrote the verse nor did he disobey the teacher. How is this possible? Solution to the riddle : Answer can be obtained by rearranging the words in the verse. Read the words न तेन as one word नतेन means 'with humility' or 'with his head bowed down'. Since Ganesha wrote the verse obediently, Vyasa was not disobeyed by him. Original shloka:  as taught in Parichaya levlel by Samskrita Bharati which gives us ...

At BioMedical Engineering Conference 2025 held in Glasgow on Sept 4th to 5th, I presented my poster on whether Mismatch Negativity (MMN) is a marker of central neuropathic pain Intensity in Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) - these are results from a home-based pilot study. Abstract :  Cross-sectional studies have shown that pain affects brain activity in Central Neuropathic Pain. However, more studies are needed to establish if mismatch negativity (MMN) is a biomarker for pain intensity. This work aims to determine whether the changes in MMN, i.e., amplitude and latency, is predictive of change in central neuropathic pain intensity due to medication. In this longitudinal study, ten people with spinal cord injury-related central neuropathic pain recorded their response to MMN experiment using home-based self-guided EEG set-up for ten days both before and after taking medications over a period of several weeks. We found that the change in MMN was not predictive of change in central neur...

I was selected to participate in Neuro-Hack, a 2-day hackathon powered by ARIA and organised by Nucleate UK. This took place on 28th to 30th Nov at London. The Hackathon brought together an interdisciplinary community interested in developing solutions for engineering a new generation scalable neuro-technologies. The Hackathon sought innovative ways to see, treat, or approach the brain. Key targets included non-surgical access, autonomous delivery, wireless therapeutic action, and non-invasive readouts.  So our product pitch in the competition entitled "Brain Pacer" was a non-invasive, adaptive brain-computer-interface using focussed functional UltraSound (fUS) for sensing and stimulation to deliver personalised neurological therapies. You can find our product pitch presentation here. I thank the organizers for selecting me for this hackathon and awarding me with a travel grant.

A recent study by Turrini et al [1] used cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation (ccPAS) - an non-invasive brain stimulation technique to manipulate brain connectivity achieved via network-based transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) - to alter effective connectivity in action observation network (AON) via Hebbian spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). They showed that enhancing (or weakening) the connectivity between the ventral part of the PreMotor cortical area (PMv) and the primary motor cortex (M1) increases (or decreases) the tendency to automatically imitate the behaviour of others. They also showed that enhancing supplementary motor area’s (SMA) connectivity with M1 actually induces a greater ability to avoid imitation when it is inappropriate to the context. This provides us with a promising avenue to treat disorders of aberrant mirroring. Misophonia is a condition where people have extreme distress towards everyday bodily sounds like eating, chewing, breathing etc...

I was conferred with Shooting Star 'Utkrashtakarta' उत्कृष्टकर्ता Award during Diwali event organized by Scottish Hindu Foundation, on 29th October 2025 hosted by Secretary of state for Scotland at Queen Elizabeth House, Edinburgh, UK, in the presence of MPs and members of Scottish Parliament (MSP) including Jackie Baillie, Sandesh Gulhane, Michael Marra, and Lord Provost of Glasgow. This award is to recognize my efforts (via iSeek ) through gamification of Indian culture and heritage including Hinduism, Scriptures, Yoga, Sanskrit, Indic Language and Arts. The award citation said "Dr. Pradeep is a neuroscientist, engineer, and digital creator whose work unites science, culture, and technology. A Ph.D. in Auditory Neuroscience from Newcastle University, he has pioneered the gamification of Indian culture through his social initiative iSeek — designing twenty five free-to-play digital games on Yoga, Sanskrit, Hinduism, and Indian heritage, in collaboration with organizations...

In my latest paper, we hypothesize that in Misophonia (a condition characterized by intense emotional and physiological reactions to specific human-generated sounds) there is a self-perpetuating cycle of mirror system hyperactivity mediated by iron dysregulation. Here is the predicted pathological self-perpetuating cycle: Mirror system hyperactivity  →  Metabolic stress  →  Iron accumulation  →  Inflammation  →  Impaired inhibition  →  Involuntary mimicry. We suggest that therapies aimed at breaking this self-perpetuating loop may offer effective strategies for managing Misophonia. Reference : [1] Pradeep Dheerendra, Soumita Ramesh, "Is iron dysregulation in the mirror motor cortex associated with misophonia?", Medical Hypotheses, vol. 204, p. 111765, Nov 2025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2025.111765 Abstract : Iron homeostasis plays a critical role in brain function and mental health, yet its dysregulation in specific psychiatric conditions remains underexplored. In this ...

This summer school on youth mental health research is organized by Wolfson Center for Young People's Mental Health at Cardiff University. The three-day course takes place online, run by the expert interdisciplinary team based at this center. I was selected to attend the 4th annual online summer school on ‘Youth Mental Health Research’. This year this school was held on July 7-9, 2025 that covered topics relating to epidemiology, genetics, neuroscience and intervention development for mental health conditions in youth. Here is a brief outline of this summer school's 2025 edition. Day 1 - July 7th 2025: After welcome and introduction, Professor Stephan Collishaw ( co-director for the Wolfson Centre ) spoke on " Secular trends in young people's mental health". Next, Professor Frances Rice (Professor of Developmental Psychopathology ) gave a talk on " Prevention of depression". After lunch, we had a talk on "Challenges for youth mental health and the cu...

I was selected to participate in the UK's first 'Closed Loop Neurotechnology' Hackathon 2025 which took place on 26th and 27th June at Imperial College London.  The Hackathon challenge was to help people relax by increasing prefrontal alpha rhythm via closed loop auditory stimulation using Elemind's real world product that is meant for putting people to sleep. Our closed loop design was based on neural entrainment to amplitude modulated pink noise sounds whose AM frequency is at the peak of the alpha rhythm dependent on individual subject's EEG recording. We chose entrainment or resonant coupled oscillators model to increase alpha frequency since the communication delay between device and our Windows computer was too high on Python (even data loss) while on MATLAB it was 200-400ms variable delay. Under such conditions where delay is not constant and high, phase locked stimulation might back fire since it could decrease instead of increasing alpha power if mistimed. ...

In 1688 the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux sent a letter to the philosopher John Locke. In it, he asked him a question:  Could someone who was born blind, and able to distinguish a globe and a cube by touch, be able to immediately distinguish and name these shapes by sight if given the ability to see? A scientific study [1] actually answered this question by conducting an experiment on the congenitally blind who have just been given the ability to see. They reported that such subjects could not distinguish a cube from a sphere by sight alone after their sight was restored, but they could rapidly learn to distinguish these shapes. I ask a related question here: Could someone who was born deaf (congenitally), and able to distinguish a snare drum from a cymbal by touch alone, be able to immediately distinguish and name these musical instruments by their sound alone (without seeing or feeling them) if given the ability to hear? I think the latest study published in Nat...

I developed a multiple choice game as a web app. One can learn the meaning of verses from Patanjali's Yoga Sutra written in classical Sanskrit language. When the player finds the correct meaning of the verse they will see the time taken and number of guesses they needed.  This game can be played either on a desktop or a hand held device. https://pd2.github.io/patanjali-yoga-sutra/

Saṃskṛta Bhāratī UK organized the 15th annual Saṃskṛta Saṃbhāṣaṇa Śibiram (residential Spoken Sanskrit Camp) at Leicester over the Easter long-weekend (3 days & 2 nights, spanning nearly 40 hours of learning and speaking Sanskrit). In this residential camp (Śibiram) I got to stay in a beautiful natural setting in the village near Loughborough in Leicester. I learnt and spoke Saṃskṛtam for 3 days without any distractions. This was a very good opportunity for improving my Saṃskṛtam that I had learned previously in school and currently via online classes. I thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to present my 20+ Indic Knowledge web games by iSeek that I have created so far. Looking at the enthusiasm of the community, I even gave them a first glimpse at "Panchang puzzle", a work-in-progress game that I am yet to launch. I also thank the organizers for giving me a platform to hold an UK premiere of "Sri-Satya-Narayana-Katha" an animation movie entirely i...

I developed a combo "wordle" + "Hangman" like puzzle as a web app. One can test their grasp over Vishnu Sahasranama in this game. The player has to guess one of the names of Vishnu as listed in the Sahasranama based on the English meaning that is revealed as a clue. All valid guesses are the names of Vishnu. One can use hint shown in Hangman style. This game can be played either on a desktop or a hand held device. https://pd2.github.io/sahasranama/ My school mate had provided the link of my Vishnu Sahasranama based wordle game to the Head mistress of a Vishnu Gupta Vishwa Vidyalaya, a Gurukul in Gokarna where his daughter studies. He told me that the HM used it with the students to make them aware of Vishnu Sahasranama and she had also conducted a quiz using my game.  I am so glad that my game is being used for real in a school.

The "happy birthday" song that we sing on someone's birthday is quite prosaic, dull, and repetitive to say the least. Maybe it it so because it addresses the lowest common denominator i.e. children who are yet to learn a language fully. If so then it is not for the adults to also sing the same song. Here is a meaningful birthday song in Sanskrit with its meaning. Song in Sanskrit: अयि प्रिय सखे जन्मदिनमिदम् । प्रार्थयामहे भव शतायुषी ॥ १ ॥ पुण्य कर्मणा कीर्तिमार्जय । जीवनम् तव भवतु सार्थकम् ॥  २  ॥ Transliteration of the poem: ayi priya sakhē janmadinamidaṃ । prārthayāmahē bhava śatāyuṣī ॥ 1 ॥ puṇya karmaṇā kīrtimarjaya । jīvanaṃ tava bhavatu sārthakam ॥ 2 ॥ Translation in English: Oh dear friend, today is your birthday; We all pray for your long life. By noble deeds may you attain fame; May your life be meaningful. Credits : [x] Original Birthday Song in Sanskrit by Swami Tejomayanandaji Link -  https://www.chinmayajyoti.org/documents/birthdaysong.pdf  

I was nominated for 'Open Research Award' 2024 from Newcastle University for my leading contribution in making 15+ software and 4+ datasets from Auditory Cognition Group as open source. The Open Research Awards recognises colleagues and students who have used open practices to make research more accessible, transparent or reproducible, and demonstrate an understanding of the aims of open research. Reference: [1] Open Research Award Winners -  https://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/academics-and-researchers/research/open-research/awards/

I developed a hang man style game as a web app. The challenge is to identify the tree by clues in the form of pictures of its bark, bud and leaf. Upon each unsuccessful guess of a letter, a new clue is revealed as pictures with the final clue being the Latin name. When the player correctly identifies the tree, they will see the time taken by them. One can learn more about natural history. This is supported on both desktop and handheld devices.  Try the Tree-ID game here -  https://pd2.github.io/tree-id/