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Pharmacology and Toxicology
David Baranger, PhD

David A. A. Baranger, PhD

Assistant Professor

Locations

  • MFRC 3040

Contact Information

Education

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Washington University in St. Louis, 2025
Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2021
PhD, Washington University in St. Louis, 2018
BA, Wesleyan University, 2010

Biography

Dr. David Baranger is a neuroscientist studying the causes and consequences of substance use. He received his PhD in Neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis, under the mentorship of Drs. Ryan Bogdan and Deanna Barch. His work was supported in part by an NSF GRFP, and his dissertation was on the use of neural biomarkers to disentangle the causes and downstream consequences of alcohol use. He first completed a postdoc at the University of Pittsburgh, with Drs. Erika Forbes and Anna Manelis, where he studied neural correlates of depression using longitudinal and machine learning analyses. He then completed a second postdoc with Drs. Arpana Agrawal and Ryan Bogdan at Washington University in St. Louis, supported by a NIAAA K99/R00, where he studied the causes and consequences of substance and alcohol use across development, using neuroimaging and statistical genetics. In 2025, Dr. Baranger moved to Milwaukee and launched his independent lab at the Medical College of Wisconsin in the Department of Cell Pharmacology and Toxicology. Undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral trainees who are enthusiastic about addiction neuroscience and interested in joining the Baranger Lab are encouraged to reach out to Dr. Baranger at dbaranger@mcw.edu.

Research Areas of Interest

  • Adolescent
  • Alcoholic Intoxication
  • Alcoholism
  • Brain
  • Cannabis
  • Child
  • Cognition
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease
  • Genome-Wide Association Study
  • Humans
  • Longitudinal Studies
  • Machine Learning

Methodologies and Techniques

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Alcohol Abstinence
  • Alcohol Drinking
  • Alcoholic Beverages
  • Alcoholic Intoxication
  • Alcoholics
  • Brain
  • Cannabis
  • Child
  • Genome-Wide Association Study
  • Humans

Research Interests

Substance use is a global health problem that is most likely to onset during adolescence/young adulthood. High rates of substance use and abuse during this developmental period are theorized to arise from normative patterns of age-related neural maturation impacting impulsivity, negative affect, and cognition. Substance use may then subsequently induce neural and behavioral changes within these circuits to further drive continued and escalating use. The Baranger Lab seeks to disentangle the developmental and predispositional origin of substance use disorders from their causal effects on the brain, with a focus on alcohol and cannabis use. We use a multi-method approach, including self-report, behavior, human neuroimaging, and genomic analyses, in adolescents and young adults, in both clinical and healthy populations. In addition to collecting data to target specific hypotheses, we use large-scale datasets that allow for rigorous data-driven approaches.

Publications

Publications of David Baranger PhD from the Faculty Collaboration Database

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