Rate My Professor Alberto Cruz-Martin Cruz

Alberto Cruz-Martin, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. He earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2006 and his B.S. in Biology from the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Before joining the University of Colorado, he was an Assistant Professor in the Neuroscience Department at Boston University, focusing on neural circuits and synaptic processing. He completed postdoctoral training in the Portera-Cailliau Laboratory at UCLA from 2006 to 2010.

The Cruz-Martín lab investigates neuroimmune interactions that regulate brain function in healthy and diseased states, emphasizing the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex. Using techniques including in vivo calcium imaging with miniscopes, super-resolution microscopy, spatial transcriptomics, genetic mouse models, and behavioral analysis pipelines like REVEALS, the lab studies synaptic plasticity, connectivity, and behavior. Research highlights the schizophrenia risk gene C4's role in pathological synaptic loss, hypoconnectivity, and sex-dependent behavioral deficits. Key publications include Phadke et al., 'The schizophrenia risk gene C4 induces pathological synaptic loss by impairing AMPAR trafficking' (Molecular Psychiatry, 2025); Fournier et al., 'Overexpression of the schizophrenia risk gene C4 in PV cells drives sex-dependent behavioral deficits and circuit dysfunction' (iScience, 2024); Johnson et al., 'Highly unstable heterogeneous representations in VIP interneurons of the anterior cingulate cortex' (Molecular Psychiatry, 2022); and Comer et al., 'Increased expression of schizophrenia-associated gene C4 leads to hypoconnectivity of prefrontal cortex and reduced social interaction' (PLoS Biology, 2020). His research is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health for studies on vasoactive intestinal peptide-expressing interneurons and has received a Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in 2018.