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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.

Susanne E Ahmari
Susanne Ahmari, MD, PhD
Research Areas: Neuroscience, Psychiatry
Research Summary:

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.

Aizenstein
Howard Aizenstein, MD, PhD
Research Areas: Bioengineering, Psychiatry
Research Summary:

Cellular and Molecular Basis of Neurodegeneration

Dombrovski
Alexandre Dombrovski, MD
Research Areas: Psychiatry
Research Summary:

Decision processes in late-life suicidal behavior and in borderline personality

Ferrarelli
Fabio Ferrarelli, MD, PhD
Research Areas: Neuroscience, Psychiatry
Research Summary:

The neurobiology of schizophrenia and neurophysiological abnormalities during wakefulness and sleep in early course psychosis

Freyberg
Zach Freyberg, MD, PhD
Research Areas: Neuroscience, Psychiatry
Research Summary:

Dopaminergic signal transduction in the central nervous system, dopamine role in regulating peripheral pancreatic insulin secretion

Melanie Grubisha
Melanie Grubisha, MD, PhD
Research Areas: Neuroscience, Psychiatry
Research Summary:

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.

Max Joffe
Max Joffe, PhD
Research Areas: Neuroscience, Psychiatry
Research Summary:

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. 

Pecina
Marta Pecina, MD, PhD
Research Areas: Psychiatry
Research Summary:

Neuroimaging biomarkers of antidepressant treatment response in humans; Molecular bases of depression

Sweet
Robert Sweet, MD
Research Areas: Neuroscience, Psychiatry
Research Summary:

Loss and altered plasticity of auditory cortex synapses in schizophrenia; Mediators of vulnerability to psychosis in Alzheimer disease