Chris McBain, PhD

Chris J. McBain is the deputy scientific director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Intramural Research program and chief of NICHD’s Laboratory of Cellular and Synaptic Neurophysiology. His current research focuses on two main aspects of inhibitory interneuron function: the embryogenesis, migration, and development of specific cohorts of medial- and caudal-ganglionic eminence-derived inhibitory interneurons and the rules that establish their integration into the nascent circuit, and the properties and roles of glutamatergic and GABAergic synapses made onto inhibitory interneurons and their downstream targets within the hippocampal formation. McBain received his BSc from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and PhD from the University of Cambridge in England, and he completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.