David Kastner, MD, PhD
Adjunct Instructor
Psychiatry
School of Medicine

Education & Training

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• MD-PhD Neuroscience Stanford University 2014

Grants and Projects

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• Determining the information processing changes that underlie the phenotype of an ASD risk gene in rats, NIH, 2025-2029

Publications (28)

Top publication keywords:
InterneuronsX-Ray MicrotomographyContrast SensitivityNeural InhibitionModels, NeurologicalRetinal Ganglion CellsRetinaAdaptation, PhysiologicalVisual PathwaysRetinal NeuronsSpatial LearningAmbystomaBehavior, AnimalChoice BehaviorSpatial Memory

• The choice-wide behavioral association study: data-driven identification of interpretable behavioral components.
  Nature communications 2026 Kastner DB, Yokota NO, Lee CY, Holobetz C, Chaudhry A, Williams G, Ton JN, Mehra M, Kharazia V, Parkinson DY, Romano JP, Dayan P
• Partial input loss differentially modifies neural pathways.
  bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2026 Lee JY, Yang J, Harris SC, John JV, Stone NS, Santina LD, Kastner DB, Dunn FA
• Convergence of autism proteins at the cilium.
  bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2025 Kostyanovskaya E, Lasser MC, Wang B, Schmidt J, Bader E, Buteo C, Arbelaez J, Sindledecker AR, McCluskey KE, Castillo O, Wang S, Dea J, Helde KA, Graglia JM, Brimble E, Kastner DB, Ehrlich AT, State …
• The choice-wide behavioral association study: data-driven identification of interpretable behavioral components.
  bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2024 Kastner DB, Williams G, Holobetz C, Romano JP, Dayan P
• Interpreting the retinal neural code for natural scenes: From computations to neurons.
  Neuron 2023 Maheswaranathan N, McIntosh LT, Tanaka H, Grant S, Kastner DB, Melander JB, Nayebi A, Brezovec LE, Wang JH, Ganguli S, Baccus SA

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• Spatial preferences account for inter-animal variability during the continual learning of a dynamic cognitive task.
  Cell reports 2022 Kastner DB, Miller EA, Yang Z, Roumis DK, Liu DF, Frank LM, Dayan P
• Inhibition, but not excitation, recovers from partial cone loss with greater spatiotemporal integration, synapse density, and frequency.
  Cell reports 2022 Lee JY, Care RA, Kastner DB, Della Santina L, Dunn FA
• Synchronous inhibitory pathways create both efficiency and diversity in the retina.
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2022 Manu M, McIntosh LT, Kastner DB, Naecker BN, Baccus SA
• Hippocampal replay reflects specific past experiences rather than a plan for subsequent choice.
  Neuron 2021 Gillespie AK, Astudillo Maya DA, Denovellis EL, Liu DF, Kastner DB, Coulter ME, Roumis DK, Eden UT, Frank LM
• How inhibitory neurons increase information transmission under threshold modulation.
  Cell reports 2021 Hsu WM, Kastner DB, Baccus SA, Sharpee TO
• Scalable method for micro-CT analysis enables large scale quantitative characterization of brain lesions and implants.
  Scientific reports 2020 Kastner DB, Kharazia V, Nevers R, Smyth C, Astudillo-Maya DA, Williams GM, Yang Z, Holobetz CM, Santina LD, Parkinson DY, Frank LM
• Memory Alone Does Not Account for the Way Rats Learn a Simple Spatial Alternation Task.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2020 Kastner DB, Gillespie AK, Dayan P, Frank LM
• Mature Retina Compensates Functionally for Partial Loss of Rod Photoreceptors.
  Cell reports 2020 Care RA, Anastassov IA, Kastner DB, Kuo YM, Della Santina L, Dunn FA
• Robust and replicable measurement for prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response.
  Molecular psychiatry 2020 Miller EA, Kastner DB, Grzybowski MN, Dwinell MR, Geurts AM, Frank LM
• Adaptation of Inhibition Mediates Retinal Sensitization.
  Current biology : CB 2019 Kastner DB, Ozuysal Y, Panagiotakos G, Baccus SA
• Partial Cone Loss Triggers Synapse-Specific Remodeling and Spatial Receptive Field Rearrangements in a Mature Retinal Circuit.
  Cell reports 2019 Care RA, Kastner DB, De la Huerta I, Pan S, Khoche A, Della Santina L, Gamlin C, Santo Tomas C, Ngo J, Chen A, Kuo YM, Ou Y, Dunn FA
• Adaptive feature detection from differential processing in parallel retinal pathways.
  PLoS computational biology 2018 Ozuysal Y, Kastner DB, Baccus SA
• Inferring hidden structure in multilayered neural circuits.
  PLoS computational biology 2018 Maheswaranathan N, Kastner DB, Baccus SA, Ganguli S
• Optimal Information Transmission by Overlapping Retinal Cell Mosaics.
  Proceedings of the ... Conference on Information Sciences and Systems. Conference on Information Sciences and Systems 2018 Zhang Y, Kastner DB, Baccus SA, Sharpee TO
• A Model of Synaptic Reconsolidation.
  Frontiers in neuroscience 2016 Kastner DB, Schwalger T, Ziegler L, Gerstner W
• Critical and maximally informative encoding between neural populations in the retina.
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2015 Kastner DB, Baccus SA, Sharpee TO
• Synaptic consolidation: from synapses to behavioral modeling.
  The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2015 Ziegler L, Zenke F, Kastner DB, Gerstner W
• Insights from the retina into the diverse and general computations of adaptation, detection, and prediction.
  Current opinion in neurobiology 2013 Kastner DB, Baccus SA
• Spatial segregation of adaptation and predictive sensitization in retinal ganglion cells.
  Neuron 2013 Kastner DB, Baccus SA
• Coordinated dynamic encoding in the retina using opposing forms of plasticity.
  Nature neuroscience 2011 Kastner DB, Baccus SA
• G protein beta gamma subunit interaction with the dynein light-chain component Tctex-1 regulates neurite outgrowth.
  The EMBO journal 2007 Sachdev P, Menon S, Kastner DB, Chuang JZ, Yeh TY, Conde C, Caceres A, Sung CH, Sakmar TP
• Prediction of supercritical ethane bulk solvent densities for pyrazine solvation shell average occupancy by 1, 2, 3, and 4 ethanes: combined experimental and ab initio approach.
  The journal of physical chemistry. A 2005 Hrnjez BJ, Sultan ST, Natanov GR, Kastner DB, Rosman MR
• Structure of Ero1p, source of disulfide bonds for oxidative protein folding in the cell.
  Cell 2004 Gross E, Kastner DB, Kaiser CA, Fass D