Early adverse exposures, including maternal stress during pregnancy, are thought to result in long-lasting consequences on neural circuit function and stress hormone regulation and ultimately in an increased risk for psychiatric but also medical disorders later in life. Using single cell sequencing in human cerebral organoids and omics data from large cohorts and human neuronal progenitor cells, this presentation will explore putative molecular mechanisms how exposure to prenatal adversity may have lasting impact on cells and system function and by this shapes risk and resilience for psychiatric disorders.
Biosketch
Elisabeth Binder has studied Medicine at the University of Vienna, Austria and Neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, USA. Following a postdoctoral training at the Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, she returned to Emory University as an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Human Genetics. In 2007, she was appointed as research group leader at the Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry within the Minerva Program of the Max-Planck Society.
Since August 2013, Elisabeth Binder is the director of the Department of Translational Research in Psychiatry at the Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry. She also holds an appointment as Full Professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Her main research interests are the identification of molecular moderators of the response to environmental factors, with a focus on early trauma and gene x environment interactions. She studies how such factors influence trajectories to psychiatric disease or well-being to ultimately use this information for novel prevention and treatment strategies.
The presentation will be retransmitted on Zoom.