He studied Neuroscience at Brown University, working with Dr Mark Bear, and received a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, under the supervision of Dr Carla Shatz. He received post-doctoral training with Dr Rob Malenka, at the Stanford Medical School, where they first described the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) as a critical mediator of homeostatic plasticity. His lab investigates the role of this form of synaptic plasticity in both normal brain function and during various disease states, including neurodegenerative disease, addiction, and developmental disorders such as autism.