Michael D. Gregory, M.D.

Biography
Michael D. Gregory, M.D. is a Staff Clinician in the Clinical and Translational Neuroscience Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Research Program. He received a B.S. in Mathematics (minor in Molecular Biology) with honors from Vanderbilt University and an M.D. from Rush University Medical College. He then completed a combined neurology and psychiatry residency at Brown University and a Cognitive Neurology Fellowship at Harvard University/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is board certified in both neurology and psychiatry, which provides him with a unique perspective on clinical neuropsychiatric research. He came to the National Institute of Mental Health in 2012 to complete a Clinical Research Fellowship and is currently a Staff Clinician undertaking research examining the genetic mechanisms related to brain development and neuropsychiatric disease.

Research Interests
The goal of Dr. Gregory’s research is to uncover genetic mechanisms that underlie brain function and development, seeking to define and characterize neurobiological features of cognitive and behavioral disorders using neuroimaging, and to assess such features with genetic, hormonal, and other molecular mechanisms. His current work involves neuroimaging, genetic, and cognitive/behavioral analyses in three main cohorts:

• Rare individuals with copy number variations of the 7q11.23 locus, where hemideletions cause Williams syndrome and duplications cause 7q11.23 duplication syndrome - disorders with contrasting behavioral phenotypes that allow a privileged setting to investigate the effects of having one, two, or three copies of affected genes on neural function and development.
• Individuals with schizophrenia, who participate in protocols aimed at structural and functional neuroimaging, dopamine functioning, and comprehensive clinical evaluations both on and off antipsychotic medications, to uncover genetic associations with disease-linked phenotypes.
• Healthy individuals, including both adults and children, who are studied with comprehensive phenotyping, multimodal neuroimaging, and genetic analyses, in the hopes of gaining a greater understanding of normal neurodevelopment and identifying genetic associations with healthy brain functioning and development.

Selected Publications

Neanderthal-derived genetic variation in living humans relates to schizophrenia diagnosis, to psychotic symptom severity, and to dopamine synthesis.  Gregory MD, Eisenberg DP, Hamborg M, Kippenhan JS, Kohn P, Kolachana B, Dickinson D, Berman KF. (2021). American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics. PMID: 34487600

Neanderthal-derived genetic variation is associated with functional connectivity in the brains of living humans.  Gregory MD, Kippenhan JS, Kohn P, Eisenberg DP, Callicott JH, Kolachana B, Berman KF. (2020). Brain Connectivity. PMID: 33218283

Genetic variation of LIMK1 affects functional connectivity of the intraparietal sulcus in Williams syndrome and in healthy adults.  Gregory MD, Elliott M, Kippenhan JS, Czarapata JB, Prabhakaran R, Nash T, Roe K, Eisenberg DP, Kohn P, Yankowitz L, Carrasco J, Mikhaiel JP, Ravindranath O, Mervis CB, Berman KF.  (2019) Brain. PMID: 31687737

Sequence variation associated with SLC12A5 gene expression is linked to brain structure and function in healthy adults . Gregory MD, Kippenhan JS, Callicott JH, Mattay VS, Weinberger DR, Berman KF. (2019) Cerebral Cortex. PMID: 30668668

Neanderthal-derived genetic variation shapes modern human cranium and brain.  Gregory MD, Kippenhan JS, Eisenberg DP, Kohn PD, Dickinson D, Mattay VS, Chen Q, Weinberger DR, Saad ZS, Berman KF. (2017). Scientific Reports. PMID: 28740249

Regional variations in brain gyrification are associated with general cognitive ability in humans.  Gregory MD, Kippenhan JS, Dickinson D, Carrasco J, Mattay VS, Weinberger DR, Berman KF. (2016). Current Biology. PMID: 27133866

Thinking about a task is associated with increased connectivity in regions activated by task performance.  Gregory MD, Robertson E, Manoach DS, Stickgold R. (2016). Brain Connectivity. PMID: 26650337

Resting state connectivity immediately following learning correlates with subsequent sleep-dependent enhancement of motor task performance.  Gregory MD, Agam Y, Selvadurai C, Nagy A, Robertson E, Stickgold R, Manoach DS. (2014). Neuroimage. PMID: 25173415