Dr. Zachary Rosenthal, MD, PhD, received his BS in Chemistry from Haverford College and subsequently completed his MD/PhD training at the Washington University in St. Louis Medical Scientist Training Program. During his graduate thesis work in the laboratory of Jin-Moo Lee, he studied how large-scale brain networks respond to focal perturbations (stroke, seizure, electromagnetic stimulation) using optical neuroimaging and electrophysiology in mouse models. He then completed residency training in psychiatry at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. During residency, Dr. Rosenthal developed a translational research program focused on the neurobiology of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and the mechanisms by which electrical seizure induction engages therapeutic brain plasticity. He combines mesoscopic optical physiology in mouse models (based out of the lab of Dr. Ethan Goldberg at CHOP) with non-invasive multimodal optical monitoring in human ECT patients at Penn to study the role of cortical spreading depolarization in therapeutic response to ECT. His work aims to redefine our mechanistic understanding of ECT and to develop biologically informed biomarkers capable of guiding individualized, next-generation neuromodulation therapies.