Swarup Mitra, PhD

Swarup Mitra is an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences and has recently graduated as an RPL at CIRCA. His research program investigates how early-life experiences and environmental factors shape brain development and contribute to long-term behavioral and neuropsychiatric outcomes. Dr. Mitra received his undergraduate degree in microbiology and a master’s degree in biotechnology from India. He earned his PhD in Biochemistry and Neuroscience from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he studied the molecular and behavioral mechanisms underlying compulsive behavior. He subsequently completed postdoctoral training in neurobiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and in substance-use neuroscience at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where his research focused on the neural and epigenetic mechanisms underlying long-term adaptations to drugs of abuse. At OSU-CHS, Dr. Mitra leads a multidisciplinary research program integrating behavioral neuroscience, molecular biology, epigenetics, proteomics, genomics, and metabolomics. His laboratory studies how early-life stress alters brain development, glial and neuronal function, and the gut–brain axis, with particular interest in how changes in the gut microbiome and microbial metabolites may link early-life adversity to later behavioral outcomes. His laboratory also investigates the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying substance use disorders, opioid-related neuroadaptations, pain vulnerability, and obesity. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and industry partners.