Chinfei Chen

Dr. Chinfei Chen, Professor of Neurology and Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, and leads research projects in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Department of Neurology, at Boston Children's Hospital. Her lab is focused on understanding the mechanisms that underlie synaptic plasticity in the young and mature mammalian central nervous system. Their studies have focused on the thalamus, a brain region that regulates consciousness, sleep, alertness and the integration of sensory information.

Dr. Chen’s research provides insight into how disruptions of developing connections in the brain can lead to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities, neuropsychiatric disorders, and epilepsy. Work from her lab has demonstrated that defects in experience-dependent plasticity underlie a subset of neurodevelopmental disorders.