Jarret Weinrich, PhD
Assistant Professor
Anesthesia
School of Medicine
Dr. Weinrich a neuroscientist and Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care. His research combines brain imaging, drug discovery, and machine learning to improve how we understand and treat pain.
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He is especially interested in how general anesthetics work in the brain, why they sometimes fail to fully block the experience of pain, and how to develop safer, more effective alternatives to those currently used.
Currently, Dr. Weinrich is a part of a team at UCSF working to develop the next generation of battlefield anesthetics—drugs designed to be safe, fast-acting, and easy to administer in any setting. He leads efforts to study how these compounds affect brain function and physiological responses in mice, using in vivo brain recordings and non-invasive physiological monitoring powered by machine learning.
Beyond drug discovery, Dr. Weinrich is developing new AI-powered tools for automated pain assessment in rodents, which are helping to accelerate the search for non-addictive pain treatments. With collaborations across departments—including Orthopedic Surgery, Anesthesia, and Anatomy —his lab works to develop and characterize improved models of injuries such as shoulder damage, bone fractures, and joint degeneration. These models are designed to better reflect real-world pain conditions and allow for more effective testing of treatments.
Dr. Weinrich earned his PhD in Biochemistry, Cell, and Molecular Biology from Weill Cornell Graduate School, after completing undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Neuroscience at the University of Miami. His work has been supported by NIH, NASA, and DARPA.
Dr. Weinrich also mentor trainees at all levels, training them to work across disciplines and translate discoveries in the lab into real-world impact.
Education & Training
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- PhD Neuroscience, Cell and Developmental Biology Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences 06/2017
- BS Chemistry, Neuroscience University of Miami 05/2008
Grants and Projects
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- Novel Anesthetics via Phenotypic and Structure-Based Screens, DOD/DARPA, 2024-2029
- Imaging Cortical Circuitry During General Anesthesia-Induced Analgesia, NIH, 2019-2021
Publications (9)
Top publication keywords:
Gyrus CinguliEjaculationPenile ErectionAcute PainInterneuronsCopulationPain MeasurementAnalgesiaProprioceptionTranscription FactorsAnesthetics, InhalationSpinal CordPainProto-Oncogene Proteins c-fosNitrous Oxide
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Deep behavioral phenotyping tracks functional recovery following tibia fracture in mice.
Frontiers in physiology 2025 Layne JE, Snapper DM, Czachor ME, Lam C, Matityahu JD, Lind DRG, Huard M, Huard J, Morioka K, Motzkin JC, Basbaum AI, Weinrich JAP, Bahney CS -
Paradoxical increases in anterior cingulate cortex activity during nitrous oxide-induced analgesia reveal a signature of pain affect.
Pain 2025 Weinrich JAP, Liu CD, Jewell ME, Andolina CR, Bernstein MX, Benitez J, Rodriguez-Rosado S, Braz JM, Maze M, Nemenov MI, Basbaum AI -
A bad break: mechanisms and assessment of acute and chronic pain after bone fracture.
Pain 2025 Nishimura H, Layne J, Yamaura K, Marcucio R, Morioka K, Basbaum AI, Weinrich JAP, Bahney CS -
Transcription factor gene Pea3 regulates erectile function during copulation in mice.
PloS one 2022 Weinrich JAP, Tyagi A, Kenney MC, DiCasoli RJ, Kaltschmidt JA -
Pain and itch processing by subpopulations of molecularly diverse spinal and trigeminal projection neurons.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2021 Wercberger R, Braz JM, Weinrich JA, Basbaum AI
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Sensory and descending motor circuitry during development and injury.
Current opinion in neurobiology 2018 Plant GW, Weinrich JA, Kaltschmidt JA -
A Role for Dystonia-Associated Genes in Spinal GABAergic Interneuron Circuitry.
Cell reports 2017 Zhang J, Weinrich JAP, Russ JB, Comer JD, Bommareddy PK, DiCasoli RJ, Wright CVE, Li Y, van Roessel PJ, Kaltschmidt JA -
Sensory-Derived Glutamate Regulates Presynaptic Inhibitory Terminals in Mouse Spinal Cord.
Neuron 2016 Mende M, Fletcher EV, Belluardo JL, Pierce JP, Bommareddy PK, Weinrich JA, Kabir ZD, Schierberl KC, Pagiazitis JG, Mendelsohn AI, Francesconi A, Edwards RH, Milner TA, Rajadhyaksha AM, van Roessel PJ,… -
Wafer-scale fabrication of patterned carbon nanofiber nanoelectrode arrays: a route for development of multiplexed, ultrasensitive disposable biosensors.
Biosensors & bioelectronics 2009 Arumugam PU, Chen H, Siddiqui S, Weinrich JA, Jejelowo A, Li J, Meyyappan M