Nishaat Mukadam, MA

Research Interests

I am interested in the field of neuropsychology particularly in understanding cognitive functioning in healthy aging and in neurodegenerative conditions. My main aim is to improve the lives and functioning of people with cognitive dysfunction and I have three areas of interest related to this aim:

1. Identifying early cognitive symptoms of neurodegeneration and investigating cognitive predictors of neurodegeneration using neuropsychological assessments and functional neuroimaging.
2. Developing functional neuropsychological rehabilitation techniques for people with cognitive dysfunctions and implementing these techniques in clinical practice
3. Developing stringent neuropsychological tests and adapting these as well as the currently available tests for use with diverse populations

 

Relevant Experience

After pursuing a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Mumbai University in India, I worked as a clinician and researcher at the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Society (PDMDS). As a clinician, I worked on developing and conducting individual and group cognitive rehabilitation for people with Parkinson’s disease. I was part of a team that worked on developing a capacity-building, community-based, multidisciplinary educational and rehabilitation model for Parkinson’s care. I adapted the Scales for Outcomes of Parkinson’s Disease-Cognition (SCOPA-Cog) into Indian English and Hindi. Further, I led a treatment-based study comparing exergaming to physiotherapy videos in improving cognitive and motor symptoms of Parkinson’s. Along with my work at the PDMDS, I also trained under a neuropsychologist in India, after which I began conducting neuropsychological evaluations and providing neuropsychological rehabilitation. I worked with different populations including people with dementia, AD, MCI, stroke, and traumatic brain injury.

I pursued a second master’s degree from Brandeis University in 2017 and completed a thesis on the influence of narrative content on self-reference memory in healthy older adult and aMCI populations. I also interned at the Boston VA Medical Center under the guidance of Dr. Andrew Budson, attending weekly case study discussions, shadowing clinicians, and collecting EEG and neuropsychological test data.

After graduating from Brandeis University, I joined Dr. Swathi Kiran’s Aphasia Research Lab at Boston University as the lab manager. I was part of multiple research projects in the lab investigating the influence of bilingualism in aphasia, the effects of cognitive reserve on language and cognitive outcomes post stroke, and the functional reorganization of the language and domain general networks post stroke.

 

Current Research

Under the guidance of Dr. Cronin-Golomb, my research investigates subjective cognitive concerns (SCC), the self-reported concerns about everyday functioning not reflected on objective measures, and their neural correlates in healthy older adults (HOA) and persons with Parkinson’s disease (PwPD). To this end, one of my projects investigated the impact of COVID-19 on SCC and social functioning in PwPD. For this study, I analyzed longitudinal data from two online surveys conducted by the lab – one from before COVID-19 (BOSS-PD) and the other from during COVID-19 (PD-COVID). Another project contrasted SCC with objective cognitive performance as a measure of global metacognitive awareness in PwPD, prodromal Parkinson’s, and healthy adults, and investigated predictors of metacognitive bias. For this study, I drew two-timepoint longitudinal data from the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) database and investigated global metacognitive sensitivity, i.e., the correlation between subjective and objective cognitive function, global metacognitive bias, i.e., the difference between subjective and objective cognitive functioning, and whether depression, anxiety, age, sex, and Parkinson’s symptom severity were predictors of global metacognitive bias in these populations. Further, I examined whether changes in metacognitive bias remained stable over a one-year period by examining longitudinal data

A third project that I am working on, titled “Neuroscience of the Everyday World,” is a cross-lab multidisciplinary study in collaboration with Dr. David Boas and Dr. Meryem Yücel from the Biomedical Engineering department, Dr. Terry Ellis and Dr. Swathi Kiran from Sargent College, and Dr. David Sommers from Psychological and Brain Sciences. This project uses functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a portable, non-invasive neuroimaging technique, to investigate neural activity while individuals engage in real-world tasks. I have been part of the team examining prefrontal and premotor cortex activation in healthy young adults, healthy older adults and people with Parkinson’s disease as they engage in various walking and cognition tasks, including single-task walking, single-task cognition, and dual-task walking (i.e., walking while engaging in a cognitive task). My work has specifically focused on investigating the neural correlates of SCC in people with PD and healthy older adults using fNIRS while individuals engage in dual-task walking from rest and from single-task walking

 

Hobbies and Interests

I enjoy traveling, exploring new places and cultures, especially the food. I also love biking and swimming.

 

Publications

Mukadam, N., Mahmood, A., Cronin-Golomb, A. & DeGutis, J. Subjective Cognitive Concerns and Global Metacognitive Bias in Prodromal Parkinson’s and Parkinson’s without Cognitive Impairment. (in press)

Kaplan, R.I., Girnis, J., Sebastian, A., Mukadam, N., Guida, C., Ellis, T.D., Cronin-Golomb, A., & Yücel, M.A. (2025). Patterns of Prefrontal Cortical Activity associated with Attention-Demanding and Motor Aspects of Dual-Task Walking as Measured with Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy. Behavioral Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1037/bne0000629

Mukadam, N., Kinger, S., Neargarder, S., Salazar R., Cronin-Golomb, A. (2025). Changes in Subjective Cognitive and Social Functioning in Parkinson’s Disease from Before to During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 13(1), 70. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare13010070

Yücel, M.A., Anderson, J.E., Rogers, D., Hajirahimi, P., Farzam, P., Gao, Y., Kaplan, R.I., Braun, E.J., Mukadam, N., Duwadi, S., Carlton, L., Beeler, D., Butler, L.K., Carpenter, E., Girnis, J., Wilson, J., Tripathi, V., Zhang, Y., Sorger, B., von Lühmann, A., Somers, D.C., Cronin-Golomb, A., Kiran, S., Ellis, T.D., & Boas, D.A. (2025). Quantifying the Impact of Hair and Skin Characteristics on fNIRS Signal Quality for Enhanced Inclusivity. Nature Human Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02274-7

Kinger, S.B., Juneau, T., Kaplan, R.I., Pluim, C.F., Fox-Fuller, J.T., Wang, T., Mukadam, N., Neargarder S., Salazar, R.D., & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2023). Changes in Apathy, Depression, and Anxiety in Parkinson’s Disease from before to during the COVID-19 Era. Brain Sciences, 13(2), 199. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13020199

Li, R., Mukadam, N., & Kiran, S. (2022). Functional MRI evidence for reorganization of language networks after stroke. Handbook of clinical neurology, 185, 131–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-823384-9.00007-4

Mukadam, N., Zhang, W., Liu, X., Budson, A.E., Gutchess, A. (2021). The Influence of Emotional Narrative Content on the Self-Reference Effect in Memory. Aging Brain, 1, 100015. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbas.2021.100015

Peñaloza, C., Scimeca, M., Gaona, A., Carpenter, E., Mukadam, N., Gray, T., Shamapant, S., & Kiran, S. (2021). Telerehabilitation for Word Retrieval Deficits in Bilinguals with Aphasia: Effectiveness and Reliability Compared to In-person Language Therapy. Frontiers in Neurology, 12, 598. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2021.589330

Peñaloza, C., Dekhtyar, M., Scimeca, M., Carpenter, E., Mukadam, N., & Kiran, S. (2020). Predicting treatment outcomes for bilinguals with aphasia using computational modelling: Study protocol for the PROCoM randomized controlled trial. BMJ Open, 10(11), e040495. doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-040495

Mukadam, N., Leger, K., & Gutchess, A. (2020). Cognitive neuroscience of aging. In Drolet, A. & Yoon, C. (Eds.), The Aging Consumer: Perspectives for Psychology and Marketing, 2nd edition (pp. 3-25). Routledge. doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429343780

Gutchess, A., Mukadam, N., Zhang, W., & Zhang, X. (2021). Influence of aging on memory across cultures. In J. Chiao, S-C., Li, R. Turner, S.Y. Lee-Tauler, & B. Pringle (Eds), Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience and Global Mental Health, (pp. 262-287). Oxford University Press https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190057695.013.13

 

Posters and Presentations

Mukadam N.*, DeGutis, J. & Cronin-Golomb, A. Impaired Global Metacognitive Awareness in Parkinson’s Disease and Prodromal Parkinson’s. International Neuropsychological Society Conference, New Orleans, LA.

Mukadam, N.*, Kinger, S., Neargarder, S., Cronin-Golomb, A. (2022, April). Changes in Subjective Cognitive and Social Functioning in Parkinson’s Disease: The COVID-19 Era. Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA

Dekhtyar, M.*, Mukadam, N.*, Braun, J. E., Zheng, H., Genovese, A., Kiran, S. (2021, November 18-20). 2188V. C.H.A.T.: Communication through Health, Art and Technology, A Support Group for Individuals with Aphasia [Recorded Virtual Presentation]. Annual Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), Washington, DC, USA.

Mukadam, N.*, Parisi, K.R., Fields, E.C., Daley, R.T., Budson, A.E., Kensinger, A.E., Gutchess, A. (2020, May). Joint Effects of Self-Referencing and Emotion on Memory in Aging and aMCI, Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2020 Annual Meeting (Virtual), Boston, MA.

Mukadam N.*, Zhang W., Budson A.E., Gutchess A. (2019, January). The Effects of Language Usage on Self-Reference Memory, Dallas Aging and Cognition Conference, Dallas, TX.

Mukadam N.*, Zhang W., Budson A.E., Gutchess A. (2018, May). Influence of Narrative Content on Self-Reference Memory, Cognitive Aging Conference, Atlanta, GA

Irani N., Mukadam N., Kinger S., D’Souza N., Barretto M. (2018, February). Setting Up Community-Based Parkinson’s Rehabilitation Centres in a Developing Country: Across Various Urban, Rural, Tribal Settings. World Congress for Neurorehabilitation Conference, Mumbai, India.

Irani, N., Barretto, M., Mukadam, N., Wandrekar, J., D’Souza, N., Sivaramakrishnan, A. (2016, September). Multidisciplinary Capacity Building Module for Rehabilitation and Care of Parkinson’s in India. World Parkinson’s Congress, Portland, Oregon.