Dr. Katie Morrison

Role for chromatin remodeling in stress-induced transcriptional and behavioral plasticity: Adversity experienced in the years surrounding puberty onset is one of the greatest predictors of affective disorder onset in women. We have previously demonstrated that pubertal adversity results in altered stress responses in both adult women in female mice and disrupts maternal behavior in mice. Data will be presented demonstrating that there is an enduring programmatic event at the chromatin landscape in key hypothalamic regions, which we hypothesize underlies both the lasting transcriptomic and behavioral consequences of this early life stress.