Abha Karki Rajbhandari, PhD

Duality is part of life!
For every bad person, there is a good person; for every evil, there is goodness.

The question is where we place our non-dualistic awareness? In outrage, numbness, despair or in actions grounded in truth, non-harm, conscience and humanity itself? 🙏

Unchecked desire for power, status, money, control on full display as endless pit, a hedonic treadmill.
Chasing, never arriving!

Fulfilled desire=greed; Unfulfilled= anger/resentment.

Yoga wisdom: desires are transient ripples in awareness and redirecting toward deeper Self-knowledge instead!

How much are our hearts craving peace in this time/moment?

The monks walking for peace are following Buddha’s path (≠ religion). When humanity seems to be lost, this is quite a contrast reminder of peace, clarity, compassion, non-harm within ourselves and others as a choice! 🙏

A contemplation: If medicine is described as science and practice of health, then aren’t wellness practices also medicine for health? Or is it just 💊. 🤔

Just as stress affects the whole brain+body, nutrition, exercise, connection (self and others) and rest (sleep and meditation) affects the whole brain and body even under dis-ease! #holistichealth #brainbody

#Healing

Such a pleasure meeting Dr. Kevin Tracey, hearing his talk, and discussing the #vagusnerve. Grateful he signed The Great Nerve in my office with Vesalius’ vagus illustration behind us! The vagus is central to our lab’s work, and my yoga teaching on parasympathetic regulation. 🙏

Beautiful memories made with the amazing @sofiyahupalo.bsky.social 🙏✨

Always so lovely and nostalgic in a good way to see and spend time with you Sofiya. Thank you for inviting me 🤗

🙏✨

Beautiful time spent with two of my favorite humans and scientists @msahsorin.bsky.social and @martinpicardenergy.bsky.social! Thanks to @acnporg.bsky.social #energy ✨

SPECIAL SEMINAR | PRESENTED FOR THE @mountsinainyc.bsky.social COMMUNITY | Co-sponsored by the #BrainBodyResearchInstitute, BMEII Sinai & @mountsinaicvri.bsky.social, @scottrussophd.bsky.social, Filip Swirski & Zahi Fayad are EXCITED to host @northwellhealth.bsky.social's Dr. Kevin J. Tracey!

@acnporg.bsky.social brain–body interactions plenary chaired by Bill Carlezon was powerful, highlighting bidirectional+holistic biology by KarlDeisseroth, Elaine Hsiao, Michael Irwin and @martinpicardenergy.bsky.social. So much to unravel, but grateful to be doing this line of work! 🙏✨

With so much suffering, pain, and sadness arising, are we practicing our innate capacity for love+compassion, than indifference/division?

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”-Rumi

How Consciousness Works: From Sleep to Self-Awareness Human consciousness intertwines awareness and self-recognition, diverging in meaning among neuroscientists and philosophers. It encompasses states like wakefulness, sleep, and alertness, influenced by physiological processes. The exploration of consciousness includes understanding sleep's restorative functions and self-awareness's role in interactions, highlighting the balance between scientific and moral aspects of human experience.

Human consciousness intertwines awareness and self-recognition, diverging in meaning among neuroscientists and philosophers. It encompasses states like wakefulness, sleep, and alertness, influenced by physiological processes.

Health and healing are always holistic! Science itself shows the importance of nutrition, exercise, rest and connection as fundamental not only for disease prevention, but also for facilitating the process of healing and recovery under disease! #brainbody

14. Grateful to the team, especially Prashant Rajbhandari, and excited for where this work leads.

Breathing is not just for survival, it is a gateway into whole-body regulation! 🙏

13. And to funding resources, we do need to support holistic, cross-system research that connects brain, body, behavior, and metabolism as it is key to understanding health and healing.

12. Sharing this especially for trainees: funding may be uncertain, but bold, integrative ideas matter. Curiosity-driven science is still worth pursuing.

11. We pursued it anyway, thanks to incredible support from colleagues and trainees at Mount Sinai.

10. On a personal note: this was not an easy path. I started my lab during COVID-19 and shifted into a completely new research direction after ~14 years of amygdala-centered work.

9. There is still much to explore, but this work opens new directions in brain–body physiology and how stress reshapes systemic metabolism.

8. This points to a broader framework where breathing circuits coordinate stress, metabolism, and behavior, far beyond respiration alone.

7. Even more surprising, the preBötzinger complex doesn’t only project to the lungs. It also connects to brown adipose tissue and liver, with PAC1 signaling influencing glucose regulation.

6. What we found:PAC1 deletion worsened fear expression, reduced oxygen levels, and disrupted heart rate regulation

5. We tested whether deleting PAC1 receptors in the preBötzinger would affect not just breathing, but fear expression and whole-body physiology.

A brainstem peptide system activated at birth protects postnatal breathing Among numerous challenges encountered at the beginning of extrauterine life, the most celebrated is the first breath that initiates a life-sustaining motor activity 1. The neural systems that regulate breathing are fragile early in development, and ...

4. Around the time I started my lab, a key paper showed that PAC1 receptors in the preBötzinger are critical for initiating breathing rhythms and deleting the PAC1 receptor increases neonatal apneas+blunts CO₂-stimulated breathing, rescued by PACAP. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

3. Motivated by this, we asked: How are breathing, stress, and energy metabolism connected at the neural level?