Dr. Patricio Rojas

Dr. Rojas holds a degree in Biology and a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from 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 centered on ion channel physiology and GABAergic inhibition.

Since establishing his lab at USACH, Dr. Rojas has led a research program built around a central idea: that chloride cotransporters and GABAergic signaling — the machinery that sets the balance between neuronal excitation and inhibition — connect circuit-level dysfunction in epilepsy to the altered excitability seen in autism spectrum disorder. Rather than treating these as unrelated conditions, the lab studies them as different behavioral and circuit-level outcomes of a common molecular vulnerability, using rodent 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 — a chloride cotransporter (NKCC1) inhibitor — as a candidate antiepileptic treatment.

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