“It is necessary, therefore, for that which moves itself to have a part that causes motion but is unmoved and a part that is moved but does not necessarily cause motion.”— Aristotle
RESEARCH PROGRAM
Understanding how the brain transforms sensation into action
Sam Inayat investigates the behavioral and neuronal mechanisms underlying movement. His research asks how the brain encodes and decodes sensory-evoked and self-generated signals across behavioral states—including awake rest, sleep, locomotion, and non-locomotor actions.
This work has both fundamental and health-related significance. Behavior-specific sensory processing may help explain impairments in neurological conditions: spatial-navigation deficits can emerge early in Alzheimer’s disease, while autism spectrum disorders can involve difficulty translating sensory information into adaptive action. Understanding movement also provides a framework for studying the effects of exercise, running, massage, and environmental enrichment.
SENSATION, COGNITION & ACTION
Functional maps across behavioral states
At the fundamental level, the research examines how sensory, cognitive, and motor-control processes are integrated to produce behavior. It also asks how neural networks may be specialized for stationary versus dynamic events, analogous to the perceptual and action-related streams of the primate visual system.
Sam’s work has identified a dynamic functional organization among excitatory neurons in the mouse hippocampus. Conjunctive populations represent related sensory and movement events, while complementary populations distinguish event-specific conditions such as immobility and locomotion. These maps continually update as sensory input, internal state, and movement change.
The lab is extending this cellular framework beyond the hippocampus to cortical and subcortical regions including somatosensory, motor, prefrontal, and entorhinal cortices and the superior colliculus. The long-term aim is to understand how these maps emerge, mature, and remain stable—and how they change with aging and neurological disease.
HEALTH & DISEASE
Searching for early functional biomarkers
By examining functional maps across age and disease progression, the lab aims to identify neural changes that precede measurable sensory, cognitive, or motor dysfunction. In prodromal Alzheimer’s disease, for example, altered neuronal function may appear before overt behavioral impairment and could provide early indicators of disease onset.
This approach also addresses broad questions about how behavior recruits excitation and inhibition and how information flows through the brain in bottom-up and top-down directions.
INTEGRATIVE METHODS
Connecting cells, circuits, and behavior
The Neuromōmentum Lab develops methods to control and compare rest and locomotion states while recording neural and behavioral signals. Its integrative toolkit includes functional neuroimaging, electrophysiology, pupillography, videography, pose and kinematic analysis, and computational methods.
By combining these measurements, the lab seeks to connect cellular activity and circuit dynamics with observable behavior and to advance our understanding of behavior-specific brain function.
TEACHING
Courses at UNLV
Dr. Inayat teaches undergraduate courses spanning perception, cellular and molecular neuroscience, and the neurobiology of learning and memory. Across fall, spring, and summer terms, his teaching connects foundational concepts with experimental evidence, research methods, clinical relevance, and applications to behavior.
PSY 305
Foundations of Perception
Examines how vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, and the vestibular system allow us to perceive and navigate the world. Students evaluate major theories and research findings, apply perceptual principles to real-world settings, and develop ideas for perceptual experiments.
PSY 428
Cellular and Molecular Approaches to Behavior
Explores how neurons and glia generate behavior through membrane potentials, synaptic transmission, neurotransmitters, intracellular signaling, and neural development. The course links cellular mechanisms to sensory and motor systems, learning, memory, and experimental approaches.
PSY 424
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
Investigates how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information across cellular, systems, and behavioral levels. Topics include implicit and explicit memory, language, decision-making, neuroscience methods, and cognitive dysfunction in health and disease.
TRAINING
Academic background
Dr. Inayat earned his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 2011. He subsequently completed neuroscience postdoctoral training at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois Chicago in 2014, followed by further postdoctoral training at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, in 2017.
Before joining UNLV, he worked at the University of Lethbridge as an imaging scientist in the Department of Neuroscience and as a sessional instructor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.