Omid B. Rahimi, Ph.D.

Dr. Omid Rahimi joined the Department of Cell Systems and Anatomy in September 2004. He is course director of Medical Gross Anatomy & Embryology and lecturer & laboratory instructor in Medical Neuroscience. He additionally co-directs senior medical student electives in Advanced Anatomy of the Back, Head & Neck, Advanced Anatomy of the Thorax, Abdomen & Pelvis, and Advanced Anatomy of the Extremities.

Dr. Rahimi has been involved with instruction of Gross Anatomy and Neuroscience to first-year Medical and Graduate students since 2000. He is also active in the development of interactive digital modules aimed to enhance the teaching of gross anatomy (GATEways).

Dr. Rahimi's research interests focus on morphological changes in neurons during development and aging.

A hallmark of aging in humans is deficits in learning and memory. Recent data show that granule neurons in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation - a region critical to proper function of certain types of memory - increase in size in the aged male mice as compared to adult mice (Figure 1). Granule neurons of dentate gyrus also undergo significant morphological changes over the first postnatal week in rat (Figure 2, Jones et al., 2003). 

Recent results show that synaptic activity is necessary for the normal progression of morphological changes during early postnatal development of granule neurons. The goal of this work is to determine factors that underlie normal neuronal development and to reveal relationships between deficits observed during aging and changes in neuronal structure.