Affiliated Faculty
This list of affiliated investigators can help you identify potential research mentors at the University of Pittsburgh. PSTP students can, and do, work with mentors not on this list, but the investigators featured below have expressed interest in hosting PSTP students in their laboratories.
The Ahmari Lab investigates the molecular, cellular, and circuit mechanisms underlying repetitive and compulsive behaviors in preclinical models and translates findings into the clinic through collaborative research studies in people with OCD.
Cellular and Molecular Basis of Neurodegeneration
We examine the role of the endocannabinoid system in symptoms and outcomes associated with schizophrenia and cannabis use, using cellular and molecular techniques to study human and rodent samples, as well as behavioral methods to study the functional outcomes of changes in the endocannabinoid system.
Decision processes in late-life suicidal behavior and in borderline personality
The neurobiology of schizophrenia and neurophysiological abnormalities during wakefulness and sleep in early course psychosis
Dopaminergic signal transduction in the central nervous system, dopamine role in regulating peripheral pancreatic insulin secretion
My work focuses on understanding both normal and abnormal adolescent dendritic development using preclinical models, focusing on how excitatory dendritic arbors stabilize across adolescence and what the functional implications are of impairments in these processes.
We investigate how alcohol and drug use regulate or disrupt mechanisms of synaptic plasticity within the prefrontal cortex and we aim to use this knowledge to develop breakthrough psychiatric medications.
Neuroimaging biomarkers of antidepressant treatment response in humans; Molecular bases of depression
Loss and altered plasticity of auditory cortex synapses in schizophrenia; Mediators of vulnerability to psychosis in Alzheimer disease