How do early-life experiences, including stress and maternal care, program the brain? What are the signals from these experiences that developing neurons perceive? Is synaptic connectivity altered? Are epigenetic mechanisms involved? How do neurons ‘know’ to modulate epigenetic programs? These are examples of questions studied in the Baram lab. Tallie Z. Baram, MD, PhD is a Professor of Pediatrics, Anatomy/Neurobiology, Neurology and Physiology/Biophysics at the University of California-Irvine, USA. Baram’s group focuses on cognitive and emotional outcomes of diverse types of experiences in developing and adult life. Students in the lab employ state-of the art live imaging and targeted manipulation of gene expression in time and space to understand how early-life environment may lead to enduring structural and functional synaptic impairments similar to those found in several developmental disorders. An additional focus of Baram’s group is how early-life experiences, including, stress and clinically-relevant seizures, orchestrate enduring gene expression programs, which, in turn, lead to abnormal neuronal function and predisposition to neuropsychiatric disorders.