Dr. Patricio Rojas

Dr. Rojas holds a degree in Biology and a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from the Universidad de Chile, and completed postdoctoral training in the laboratories of Dr. Lawrence Salkoff (Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology) and Dr. Steven Mennerick (Department of Psychiatry) at Washington University School of Medicine, where his work focused on ion channel physiology and GABAergic inhibition.

Since establishing his lab at USACH, Dr. Rojas has led a research program built around one central idea: that chloride cotransporters and GABAergic signaling — the machinery that sets the balance between neuronal excitation and inhibition — link circuit-level dysfunction in epilepsy to the altered excitability seen in autism spectrum disorder. Rather than treating these conditions as unrelated phenomena, the lab studies them as distinct behavioral and circuit outcomes of a common molecular vulnerability, using animal models and hippocampal electrophysiology to trace that vulnerability from ion channels to seizures, cognition and behavior.

This approach has also driven translational work in the lab, including the repurposing of bumetanide — an inhibitor of the chloride cotransporter NKCC1 — as a candidate antiepileptic treatment.

Dr. Rojas served as Treasurer (2013–2016) and President (2016–2019) of the Chilean Society for Neuroscience (Sociedad de Neurociencia de Chile), and has been a member of the Biophysical Society since 2003 and of the Society for Neuroscience since 2007.