Heather Richardson

The focus of my laboratory is to determine the neurobiological mechanisms underlying stress-related disorders using rodent models. Men and women show different vulnerability to stress-related disorders such as drug abuse and anxiety in adulthood. This may be driven by sex differences in brain structure, chemistry, and circulating hormones in adulthood. Adolescence is a period of neural plasticity during which experiences or substances that modulate endocrine systems (e.g., stress, drug abuse, and environmental toxins), may interfere with normal neural remodeling and alter sexually dichotomous behaviors. Our research aims to understand not only the neural and hormonal determinants of alcohol dependence in adulthood but how susceptibility to stress-related disorders may be shaped during adolescent development.