Gabrielle Pouchelon is a developmental neurobiologist who joined Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) as an assistant professor in 2022. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Geneva in Denis Jabaudon’s lab and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Gordon Fishell’s lab at New York University, Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Pouchelon’s research focuses on understanding the interplay between environmental cues and intrinsic molecular programs involved in the assembly of neural circuits, as well as unraveling the implications of this balance in autism. Sensory-driven activity regulates the excitatory/inhibitory balance during development, which is disrupted in neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism spectrum disorder and fragile X syndrome. The Pouchelon laboratory employs a multidisciplinary and integrated approach, combining techniques ranging from neuroimaging to electrophysiology and molecular methods to uncover the activity-dependent signals that instruct early circuit maturation and to determine how disruptions in these developmental processes contribute to autism.