Rui Peixoto is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh. The overarching research goal of his laboratory is to understand how neural activity regulates the development of cortical and basal ganglia circuits and to address how perturbations of these early maturation processes give rise to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To this end, Peixoto’s team uses a multidisciplinary research approach, combining neurophysiology with molecular and cell biology, and employing novel imaging and electrophysiological techniques that allow precise control and monitoring of neural activity throughout mouse development in vivo.

Peixoto received an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Universidade de Coimbra in Portugal in 2003 and earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Duke University Medical Center and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2011. His graduate work with Michael Ehlers at Duke focused on activity-dependent regulation of synaptic adhesion. He was then a postdoctoral fellow in Bernardo Sabatini’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where his studies focused on the development of corticostriatal circuits and implications for ASD.