Dr. Conor Liston

The Liston Lab integrates multi-scale approaches to uncover how stress and sleep alter brain circuits, informing biomarkers and treatments for mood disorders.

Dr. Conor Liston, MD, PhD, is a clinical psychiatrist and Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine, where he specializes in treating people with depression and other treatment-resistant mood disorders. Through his research, Dr. Liston and his team study how brain circuits in the prefrontal cortex support learning, memory, motivation, and emotion—and how stress, sleep, and developmental changes can disrupt these processes in conditions such as depression and OCD. Using advanced tools like brain imaging, two-photon microscopy, and neuromodulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, his lab is developing new ways to identify brain-based biomarkers and predict who will benefit most from specific treatments. His groundbreaking work has been recognized with honors from the Klingenstein-Simons Foundation Fund, the Rita Allen Foundation, the Dana Foundation, the One Mind Institute, the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Consortium, and the Wellcome Leap Foundation. Dr. Liston earned his B.A. from Harvard College and his M.D./Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine, followed by psychiatry residency at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and postdoctoral training at Stanford University.