Psychology Colloquium: “Learned pessimism: Sex-specific cognitive bias in rats.”

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is more common in women than in men, and women have more severe symptoms of MDD. Cognitive symptoms of MDD include negative cognitive bias, the increased perception of neutral situations or objects as negative. Negative cognitive bias is a treatment-resistant symptom of MDD and underlying mechanisms have seldom been examined. My research uses rodent models to examine sex- and age-specific mechanisms underlying negative cognitive bias with a goal of discovering novel treatments for this depressive symptom. Sex- and age-specific functional connectivity, inflammation in the brain, and neurogenesis have been examined in response to cognitive bias testing pre- and post-stress in rats to lay the groundwork for novel therapeutics.

Speakers

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  Travis Hodges

  Assistant Professor
  Mt. Holyoke