Lief Fenno

About

Lief Fenno, M.D., Ph.D., FAPA, is a physician-scientist and clinician whose work bridges basic neuroscience, bioengineering, and addiction medicine. He holds faculty appointments in Dell Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the College of Natural Sciences’ Department of Neuroscience, and a courtesy appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering. Dr. Fenno directs the Fenno Lab, which develops and applies new molecular, genetic, and viral technologies for precisely defining, monitoring, and controlling neural circuits. His research focuses on creating next-generation tools for understanding brain function and therapeutically manipulating dysfunctional neural systems relevant to psychiatric and neurologic disease. His laboratory investigates biological questions related to neural-circuit mechanisms of psychedelic therapeutics, the roles of non-neuronal cell types in addiction, and approaches to causally link human GWAS findings to circuit dysfunction. Dr. Fenno is an inventor on multiple patents arising from his work, and his technologies are widely used in academia and industry. He has played founding and advisory roles in companies focused on neurotechnology and gene-based therapeutics. Clinically, he specializes in the management of addiction, with a focus on office-based treatment of opioid use disorder and harm-reduction-oriented care. He is board-certified in adult psychiatry and addiction…

Research topics

• Biology
• Neuroscience
• Cell biology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Science
• Genetics
• Computational biology
• Biochemistry
• Chemistry
• Nanotechnology

Selected publications

• Unique functional responses differentially map onto genetic subtypes of dopamine neurons

  Nature Neuroscience · 2023 · 164 citations

  subtype, which instead displayed acceleration-correlated signaling. Our findings establish a connection between functional and genetic dopamine neuron subtypes and demonstrate that molecular expression patterns can serve as a common framework to dissect dopaminergic functions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ultrasound-Induced Cascade Amplification in a Mechanoluminescent Nanotransducer for Enhanced Sono-Optogenetic Deep Brain Stimulation

  ACS Nano · 2023-12-14 · 33 citations

  articleOpen access

  Remote and genetically targeted neuromodulation in the deep brain is important for understanding and treatment of neurological diseases. Ultrasound-triggered mechanoluminescent technology offers a promising approach for achieving remote and genetically targeted brain modulation. However, its application has thus far been limited to shallow brain depths due to challenges related to low sonochemical reaction efficiency and restricted photon yields. Here we report a cascaded mechanoluminescent nano…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A brain-wide map of descending inputs onto spinal V1 interneurons

  Neuron · 2024-12-24 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  neuronal subsets. Collectively, these studies reveal elements of biased connectivity and convergence in descending inputs to molecularly distinct interneuron subsets and provide an anatomical foundation for understanding how supraspinal systems influence spinal motor circuits.

  PublisherDOI

• Neocortical long-range inhibition promotes cortical synchrony and sleep

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2024-06-23 · 9 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract Sleep and wakefulness are associated with distinct cortical patterns of rhythmic activity. During low-arousal states such as slow wave sleep, synchronous low-frequency rhythms dominate activity across widespread cortical regions. Although inhibitory neurons are increasingly recognized as key players of cortical state, the in vivo circuit mechanisms coordinating synchronized activity across local and distant neocortical networks remain poorly understood. Here, we show that somatostatin a…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ribosome-Associated Vesicles promote activity-dependent local translation in neurons

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2024-06-08 · 8 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract Local protein synthesis in axons and dendrites underpins synaptic plasticity. However, the composition of the protein synthesis machinery in distal neuronal processes and the mechanisms for its deployment to local translation sites remain unclear. Here, we employed a multi-scale imaging approach combining cryo-electron tomography, volume electron microscopy, and live-cell imaging to identify endoplasmic reticulum-derived Ribosome-Associated Vesicles (RAVs) as a dynamic platform for movi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Karl Deisseroth

  Stanford University

  136 shared

• Charu Ramakrishnan

  Stanford University

  60 shared

• Ofer Yizhar

  Weizmann Institute of Science

  18 shared

• Yoon Seok Kim

  16 shared

• Yoon Seok Kim

  Stanford University

  14 shared

• Feng Zhang

  11 shared

• Wyatt J. Woodson

  Stanford University

  9 shared

• Gary K. Steinberg

  Stanford Medicine

  9 shared

Awards & honors

• American Psychiatric Association fellow

Similar researchers at University of Texas at Austin

• Steven Abramsh-99
• Aaron Bakerh-50
• Kenneth Dillerh-42