Lauren L. Orefice

Lauren Orefice is an American neuroscientist and assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Orefice has made innovative discoveries about the role of peripheral nerves and sensory hypersensitivity in the development of Autism-like behaviors. Her research now focuses on exploring the basic biology of somatosensory neural circuits for both touch and gastrointestinal function in order to shed light on how peripheral sensation impacts brain development and susceptibility to diseases like Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Early life and education Orefice pursued her undergraduate degree at Boston College. She majored in biology and worked in the lab of Stephen C. Heinrichs. She studied the neurobiological underpinning of seizure susceptibility in mice and published a first author paper in Epilepsy and Behavior. She used mouse models of idiopathic epilepsy (IE) to explore how increased parental investment impacted seizure susceptibility in offspring with IE. She worked under the mentorship of Baoji Xu studying the role of BDNF in dendritic spine morphogenesis in the hippocampus. Her first paper in the lab highlighted the differential roles of two types of BDNF mRNA in spine growth and maturation. She found a form of BDNF mRNA with a short 3’ untranslated region (UTR) that was present in the soma and promoted spine formation. She found that neuronal activity promoted the translation of local BDNF mRNA in the dendrites, while translation of BDNF in the soma is independent of action potentials.

Career and research In 2014, Orefice pursued her postdoctoral work in the lab of David Ginty at Harvard Medical School. In the Ginty Lab, Orefice studied the peripheral somatosensory system, a substantial change from her prior work in the central nervous system.

In 2019, Orefice was promoted to Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital as well as assistant professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard University. She is particularly interested in exploring the development and function of peripheral sensory neurons that innervate internal organs since these might mediate the brain-gut connection to influence behavior and brain-related disease. Orefice sought to understand which somatosensory neural circuits were dysfunctional in ASD mouse models as well as how peripheral somatosensory dysfunction contributes to disordered behavioral phenotypes. Since she found that peripheral sensory neuron hyperactivity in development was linked to ASD-like behaviors in adulthood as well as impairments in specific brain circuits, Orefice treated ASD models with peripherally restricted GABAa receptor agonists to increase inhibition at the level of mechanosensory neurons.

Awards and honors

2020 Pew Biomedical Scholar 2020 Searle Scholar 2019 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology 2019 Smith Family Award 2019 Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award in Neuroscience 2018 Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation 2016 Notable Papers of 2016 Simons Foundation Spotlight

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