Past Accomplishments in Junior Faculty Training

Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) at Yale

From 2000 through 2007, we have successfully trained six scholars to conduct interdisciplinary research focused on the dramatically understudied area of women and drug abuse.

BIRCWH Team (left to right): Therese Kosten, Ann Rasmusson, Ray Li, Wendy Lynch, Bruce Rounsaville, Carolyn Mazure, Idil Cavus

This work is made possible through a $2.5 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Research on Women’s Health. The central theme of our research training program is the development and evaluation of gender-specific innovative pharmacologic and behavioral treatments and prevention strategies for those who abuse or are likely to abuse substances.

Principal Investigator: Carolyn M. Mazure, Ph.D.
Program Director: Bruce Rounsaville, M.D.

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BIRCWH Scholar Graduates

Chiang-shan Ray Li, M.D., Ph.D.
Current position: Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine  

Personality, Gender and Drug Abuse

Dr. Li’s primary research goal was to understand the gender-specific relationships between personality traits and brain function in those dependent upon cocaine. He remains particularly interested in employing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the neurobiological basis of novelty seeking, impulsivity and reward responsiveness and the role of gender in the expression of these personality traits. Dr. Li has newly funded NIH grants to support his work (e.g. I/START RO3 grant).

Primary Mentors: Rajita Sinha, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry
Secondary Mentor: Amy Arnsten, Ph.D., Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology

Click here for selected publications.

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Wendy Lynch, Ph.D.
Current position: Assistant Professor in Psychiatric Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville

The Effect of Sex Differences and Hormones on Cocaine Self-Administration
Dr. Lynch’s work focused primarily on animal models of drug abuse and psychiatric disorders, with a special interest in sex differences and hormonal factors that influence these disorders. She seeks to understand behavior at multiple levels of analysis, from a system perspective to a cellular and molecular one.

In collaboration with her BIRCWH Mentor Jane Taylor, she used an innovative animal cocaine binge self-administration paradigm to study aspects of cocaine dependence that mimic typical human patterns of use, and found that, compared with males, female rats take more cocaine, ‘binge’ for longer periods of time, display a greater loss of circadian variability with cocaine intake and show decreased motivation to resume cocaine use after a period of cocaine abstinence.  She has demonstrated the importance of estrogen as a mediator of these differences, suggesting the importance of estrogen in understanding sex differences in the course and treatment outcome in those who abuse cocaine. Her continued research on the molecular basis of differing binge patterns is designed to provide pharmacological targets for treating females who abuse cocaine.

Primary Mentor: Jane Taylor, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Secondary Mentors: Marina Picciotto, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology, and Neurobiology.

Click here for selected publications.

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Rajita Sinha, Ph.D.
Current position: Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine

Gender Differences in the Relationship between Stress and Addictive Processes

Dr. Sinha’s research interests focused on the examination of gender-specific neurobiological mechanisms underlying the association between stress and addictive disorders. A major goal of her research program has been to translate human laboratory and brain imaging findings into treatment and prevention approaches that target the effects of stress on addictive behaviors.

In Dr. Sinha’s research, the effects of stress are examined across multiple systems, i.e., subjective effects, hormonal changes, physiological changes, behavioral measures, neural circuits and psychosocial outcomes. These multi-system assessments (conducted using tools from neuroimaging, neuroendocrine assessments, psychosocial and cognitive psychology) are correlated with clinical outcomes. Further, psychiatric genetics is being employed to identify candidate genes that may account for variance in stress phenotypes in addictive disorders. These data are contributing to the development of new treatments that are tested in treatment efficacy studies.

Primary Mentors: Kathleen Carroll, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry
Secondary Mentors: Stephanie O'Malley, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry

Click here for selected publications.

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Therese A. Kosten, Ph.D.
Current position: Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX

Neurobehavioral Responses to Cocaine - Interactions of Gender with Genetic and Environmental Influences

The goal of Dr. Kosten’s research has been to understand the neural and behavioral consequences of early life stress, particularly as it relates to addiction.

Using an animal model of early life stress, called neonatal isolation, Dr. Kosten has demonstrated that neonatal isolation has immediate and enduring neurochemical effects in a brain area linked to drug reinforcement.  Dr. Kosten and collaborators also established that neonatal isolation enhances acquisition, maintenance, and reinstatement of cocaine self-administration in adult animals, and that this early life manipulation is greater and more generalized in females.

Overall, her research suggests that early life stress likely enhances vulnerability to addiction in males and females, yet may have a more potent effect in females. Translation of these data suggests that prevention programs may need to target individuals with early trauma and tailor treatment programs to their needs.  Moreover, the model she has developed may also be useful for understanding early childhood disorders of affect regulation and eating disorders in adult females.

Primary Mentor: Bruce Rounsaville, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry
Secondary Mentors: Mary Jeanne Kreek, M.D., Professor, The Laboratory of the Biology of Addictive Diseases, The Rockefeller University, and Priscilla Kehoe, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of California, Irvine.

Click here for selected publications.

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Ann M. Rasmusson, M.D.
Current position: Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine

Nicotine Addiction in Women with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Dr. Rasmusson’s BIRCWH program of research characterized underlying biological and neuropsychiatric abnormalities in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), relevant gender variations, and the means by which they promote smoking dependence.

She has used a combination of research methods in this work, including neuroendocrine challenge studies, a cerebrospinal fluid and plasma sampling study, DNA analysis, neuropsychological testing and brain fMRI techniques. In addition, new combinations of cognitive-behavioral and biological approaches for the treatment of nicotine dependence, tailored to address the gender-specific neurobiological and psychological factors that render cessation from smoking so difficult in persons with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, are being adapted for treatment of PTSD co-occurring with nicotine dependence.

Primary Mentor: Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Secondary Mentors: John Krystal, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, and Marina Picciotto, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology, and Neurobiology.

Click here for selected publications.

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Idil Cavus, M.D., Ph.D.
Current position: Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine

Effects of Menstrual Cycle Phase and Nicotine on Cognition, Neurochemistry and Neurophysiology  

The overall goal of Dr. Cavus’ research is to understand the gender-specific neurochemical and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying human brain excitability and their relationship to neurological, substance abuse and psychiatric disorders. To this end, she uses both invasive and non-invasive methods to study the excitability and plasticity of the human brain in both controls and in neurological and psychiatric patients.

Working within the Yale University Neurosurgery Epilepsy Microdialysis Program, this ground-breaking line of research has offered the unique opportunity to study in vivo neurochemical changes in awake, behaving humans.

Primary Mentor: John Krystal, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry
Secondary Mentors: Dennis Spencer, M.D., Chair of Neurosurgery and Director of the Yale Neurosurgery Epilepsy Program.

Click here for selected publications.