David Schaeffer, PhD

  • Assistant Professor, Neurobiology

E-mail

DSCHAEFF@pitt.edu

Personal Website

https://schaefferlab.neurobio.pitt.edu/

Education & Training

PhD, University of Georgia (2016)

Campus Address

3059 Biomedical Science Tower 3

One-Line Research Description

Mapping functional and structural circuitries of the marmoset brain in healthy and diseased states

The Schaeffer Lab studies the ciricities underlying complex behaviors in the primate brain, with the goal of informing how these networks go awry in human neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric diseases.  Our research leverages the evolutionary proximity of a small New World primate species, the common marmoset. To probe these translationally-relevant hypotheses, we are developing state-of-the-art noninvasive approaches for transgene delivery and neuromodulation using focused ultrasound. Further, we develop methods for ultrahigh field MRI and positron emission tomography for probing the marmoset brain to gain a better understanding of how marmoset brain circuitries conform with other species across the evolutionary tree.

Representative Publications

Parks, T. V., Szczupak, D., Choi, S., Mou, Y., Silva, A. C., Schaeffer, D. J. (2023). Noninvasive disruption of the blood-brain barrier in the marmoset monkey. Communications Biology, 6(1). 806.

Schaeffer, D. J., Gilbert, K. M., Bellyou, M., Silva, A. C., Everling, S. (2022). Frontoparietal connectivity as a product of convergent evolution in rodents and primates: functional connectivity topologies in grey squirrels, rats, and marmosets. Communications Biology, 5, 986.

Schaeffer, D. J., Klassen, L. M., Hori, Y., Tian, X., Szczupak, D., Yen, C. C-C., Cléry, J., Gilbert, K. M., Gati, J. S., Menon, R. S., Liu, C., Everling, S., Silva, A. C. (2022). An open access resource for functional connectivity from fully awake marmoset monkeys. NeuroImage, 252, 119030.

Schaeffer, D. J., Selvanayagam, J., Johnston, K. D., Menon, R. S., Freiwald, W. A., Everling, S. (2020). Face selective patches in marmoset frontal cortex. Nature Communications, 11, 4856.

Schaeffer, D. J., Hori, Y., Gilbert, K. M., Gati, J. S., Menon, R. S., Everling, S. (2020). Divergence of rodent and primate medial frontal cortex functional connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(35), 21681-21689.

Schaeffer, D. J., Gilbert, K. M., Hori, Y., Gati, J. S., Menon, R. S., Everling, S. (2019) Integrated radiofrequency array and animal holder design for minimizing head motion during awake marmoset functional magnetic resonance imaging. NeuroImage, 193, 126-138.

https://schaefferlab.neurobio.pitt.edu/publications/