Dr. Naveen received his PhD in Chemistry with a specialization in Biophysics and Neuroscience from the Department of Membrane Biophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical chemistry, Goettingen, Germany, under the guidance of Dr. Christian Rosenmund and Dr. Erwin Neher (1991 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine). He did a postdoctoral fellowship in cellular neuroscience in Mark Bear’s lab at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT and systems neuroscience at the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Michael Merzenich. He joined Dr. Mario Capecchi’s laboratory (2007 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine) at the University of Utah to investigate the role of Hoxb8 gene function in repetitive, anxiety and social behavioral functions in the Hoxb8 mouse model of repetitive behaviors. Dr. Naveen along with Dr. Capecchi discovered a novel brain mechanism in which specialized immune cells called microglia, rather than just neurons, control anxiety and obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder (OCSD)-like behaviors in mice. Their research challenges the traditional "dogma" that only neurons generate behavior, suggesting instead that microglia act as "accelerators" and "brakes" for repetitive behaviors and anxiety, offering new potential targets for therapeutic intervention. Dr. Naveen was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pediatrics/Child Neurology, Pediatrics Research Institute, University of Louisville in 2024.