Gregory Barnes’s research focus is the genetics of guidance cues influencing interneuron circuitry during development, and as a result, impacting neurological symptoms in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. His interests have created a truly translational research program to model epilepsy and neurodevelopmental disorders. Clinical research studies are directed towards more fully defining the extent to which epileptiform activity during development sculpts neuronal circuitry to produce epilepsy and behavioral and cognitive deficits in humans with neurodevelopmental disorders. Barnes’s laboratory is focused on mechanisms of PI3 kinase signaling that plays a key role in interneuron migration, interneuron neurite outgrowth, cell survival, GABAergic synaptogenesis, and neurologic dysfunction in mouse models of neurodevelopmental disorders. Mouse models of neurodevelopmental disorders and epilepsy such as the PTEN conditional knockout mouse are useful to investigate the developmental pathophysiology and identify potential therapeutic targets to ease the suffering and facilitate the behavior and learning of those individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. Barnes has a very broad background in clinical and basic neuroscience of epilepsy and neurodevelopmental disorders. In particular, he has developed cross-disciplinary training and published experience to lead research team of investigators in addressing a very novel hypothesis. The current studies will likely contribute to new hypotheses and therapeutic targets in the neurodevelopmental etiology and pathophysiology of neurodevelopmental and mental health disorders. The laboratory projects cross-fertilize the efforts of the Autism Treatment Network EEG/Epilepsy group, which he leads, to define the relationship of epileptiform activity to sleep, cognition, and behavior in children with autism spectrum disorders.