Headshot of Natasha Marrus.

Natasha Marrus

Associate professor of psychiatry
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis

Natasha Marrus is a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and associate professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She has more than 10 years of experience in developmental neuroimaging and applying novel phenotyping of autism-relevant behaviors in infancy to quantify their relationship to later autism outcomes.

From this contributor

Illustration of children looking at a gigantic set of building blocks, some of which display genetic sequences on their surfaces.
Spectrum

Autism is more heritable in boys than in girls

By Sneha Chaturvedi, John Constantino, Natasha Marrus, Sven Sandin, Benjamin Yip
19 September 2024 | 6 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of rolling dice.
Funding

Grant review needs reform. How about we add an element of chance?

A process that uses a lottery system saves time, reduces strategic resubmission and accepts that, above a quality threshold, luck has always played a part in science funding.

By Adrien Peyrache
25 September 2026 | 6 min read
Research diagram of gene expression.
Development

Fly neurons carry molecular signatures of their origins

The pattern of transcription factors a Drosophila neuron expresses offers clues to its lineage and birth order—and ultimately how neural circuits emerge.

By Alissa de Chassey
25 September 2026 | 5 min read
Cortical organoids from the anterior (green) or posterior (red) cortex.
Spectrum

Polarized cortical organoids mimic the brain’s regional organization

The organoids show region-specific gene-expression changes that match those observed during fetal development.

By Holly Barker
24 September 2026 | 4 min read