Posts by Jill M. Goldstein, PhD
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Effect of Hypertension on Midlife Cognition May Be Detrimental in Women
Hannah L. Shields, Jill M. Goldstein, PhD, MPH, and colleagues present evidence that sex differences in early midlife cognitive performance are attenuated in men and women with hypertension. Failing to account for sex differences may prevent early detection of cognitive decline and dementia.
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Novel Form of Vagus Nerve Stimulation Promising for Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder
Ronald Garcia, MD, PhD, Jill Goldstein, PhD, and colleagues showed that a novel form of vagus nerve stimulation they devised improved brain response to negative stressful stimuli in women with recurrent major depression who were experiencing an active depressive episode.
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Sex-specific Genetic Effects Across Neuropsychiatric and Behavioral Traits Identified for the First Time
Jill M. Goldstein, PhD, and Jordan W. Smoller, MD, ScD, of the Department of Psychiatry, and colleagues have reported the first modest evidence of sex-dependent autosomal genetic effects across neuropsychiatric and behavioral traits.
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Prenatal Exposure to Proinflammatory Cytokines May Increase Risk of Psychiatric Disorders by Sex 45 years later in Adulthood
Jill M. Goldstein, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry, and colleagues determined that middle-aged individuals exposed in utero to pro-inflammatory cytokines exhibit dysregulation of stress response brain circuitry, which has been implicated in psychiatric disorders and many other chronic disorders.
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Exploring Interactions Between Genotype and Sex on the Risk of Psychiatric Disorders
In a large genome-wide genotype-by-sex analysis, Massachusetts General Hospital researchers found that significant sex-dependent effects were enriched for genes related to neuronal development and immune and vascular functions across and within schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.
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Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor Influences Maintenance of Intact Memory in Women
In postmenopausal women, but not men or pre-/perimenopausal women, brain-derived neurotrophic factor influences memory performance and memory circuitry function.
Biography
Jill M. Goldstein, Ph.D. is Founder and Executive Director of the Innovation Center on Sex Differences in Medicine (ICON) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the Helen T. Moerschner Endowed MGH Research Institute Chair in Women’s Health, and Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine, Harvard Medical School. She is a clinical neuroscientist and expert in understanding sex differences in health and diseases associated with the central nervous system, and their co-occurrence with general medicine, e.g., cardiovascular disease (CVD). Her science has focused on prenatal and early life exposures and risk for sex differences in the co-occurrence of these disorders across the life course, in particular, major depression, CVD and Alzheimer’s disease. Her program of research (funded by National Institute of Health (NIH) for >30 years) called the Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory of Sex Differences in the Brain, consists of an interdisciplinary team of investigators integrating brain imaging, physiology, neuroendocrinology, genetics, immune function, and collaborations with animal studies of sex differences in hormones and the brain. Dr. Goldstein has received numerous awards for her work on sex differences in the brain, served on scientific review boards, and participated in strategic planning for NIMH, NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, and the Institute of Medicine. She has spent her career at Harvard training the next generation of women and men in women’s health and sex differences in medicine, including leading an ORWH Harvard K12 training program on building interdisciplinary careers in women’s health. The mission of ICON (http://icon.mgh.harvard.edu), is to tackle the co-occurrence of major depression, CVD, and AD by applying a sex differences lens across the lifespan that will integrate shared causes and consequences to more effectively develop personalized sex-dependent therapeutics.
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