Matthew Harlin
Senior Director, Discovery Research, Early Phase & Translational Medicine Otsuka Pharmaceutical Companies (U.S.)
Marco Pignatelli, M.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis and a rising leader in synaptic physiology and neuropsychiatry. His work integrates electrophysiology, pharmacology, and behavior to uncover how experience shapes synaptic plasticity and contributes to disorders such as depression, PTSD and schizophrenia. Marco earned his M.D. and completed a Residency in Clinical Pharmacology at Sapienza University of Rome. Then, Marco moved to the United States where he continued his scientific trajectory at the National Institutes of Health. Marco has made influential discoveries on stress-induced dopamine plasticity, circuit mechanisms of emotional behavior, and synaptic deficits linked to psychiatric disease. Marco has been awarded a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. He is currently funded by the NIH and he has recently received a Mental Health Award by the Wellcome Trust Fundation. Recently he has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 A.E. Bennett Basic Research Award by the Society of Biological Psychiatry.
Seminars
- Examining the evidence linking psychedelic induced synaptic and dendritic remodeling with changes in mood, cognition and emotional processing
- Exploring whether neuroplasticity is a mechanistic driver of efficacy or a downstream accompaniment to broader network level changes
- Comparing plasticity linked biomarkers, such as EEG signatures, sleep architecture shifts and neurotrophic factor changes, to determine which most reliably map onto clinical response
- Debating how much neuroplasticity is necessary, sufficient or even predictive for therapeutic benefit across different psychedelic and non psychedelic compounds
- Considering maladaptive behaviors underpinned by neuroplasticity in the brain
- How might we treat “neuroplastogens” differently: as a separate class
