Melissa de Oliveira

Dr. Melissa Alves Braga de Oliveira graduated from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil (BSc) in Biomedical Sciences. During her graduate and postgraduate research, under the supervision of Prof Dr. Maria Paz Hidalgo, she developed her expertise in the chronobiology field, being involved in pre-clinical, clinical, and epidemiological studies investigating how light exposure patterns affect sleep, behavior, and brain rhythms. During her Ph.D., under the co-supervision of Prof Dr. Maria Elisa Calcagnotto, she described the electrophysiological patterns identified in rodents exposed to different lighting systems to exploit the potential for the circadian organization of lighting sources that aim to mimic natural light.

The objective of her MSCA-NeuroInsight fellowship is to combine her background in chronobiology and in vivo electrophysiology with Dr Cristina Reschke's expertise in preclinical research in epilepsy, to comprehensively explore the role of the brain’s structures related to circadian regulation in epilepsy. Specifically, she aims to uncover the underlying mechanisms by which these structures' biological rhythms influence epileptogenesis and seizure recurrence leveraging to ultimately design tailored therapy strategies.