US News and World Report Ratings:

My Rating System

Schools without faculty in these research areas will be greyed out.

List of Schools

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

• Jill Becker
• Sex differences in brain and behavior; neurochemical and behavioral approaches to study hormonal modulation of brain function and sexual behavior;

neural plasticity and development of sex differences; brain tissue transplantation.
• Warren Holmes
• Animal behavior and the evolution of social behavior; development of social relations; mechanisms of kin recognition and social behavior involving close

genetic relatives. Seasonal breeding; environmental control of sexual maturation.
• Barbara Smuts
•  The evolution of social behavior; social behavior of wild nonhuman primates; the evolution of intimate relationships, cooperation, and reciprocity;

evolution of systems of gender inequality; male violence against females.

Yale University

Interdepartmental Neuroscience

• Frederick Naftolin
• Study of estrogen induced brain development, synaptic plasticity, and aging.
• Ruth Wood
• Steroidal receptor-containing neurons controlling male sexual behavior.

UCLA

Neuroscience

• Arthur P. Arnold
• We investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the actions of sex steroid hormones on neural circuits, and that cause development of sex differences in the brain. Two model systems are studied, the neural circuit controlling song in Passerine song birds, and androgen-sensitive perineal motoneurons in rats. Recent work has focused on the interplay between sex steroids and genetic factors during sexual differentiation, and the role of neurotrophins in regulating steroid receptors.
• Barney Schlinger
• We are interested in how hormones influence the development and the function of the brain. We use biochemical, molecular, histological and behavioral procedures to study mechanisms of steroid hormone synthesis and the mechanisms underlying steroid actions on neural tissue to control behavior. We use a comparative approach, focusing on avian models in laboratory and in field studies. We examine steroid effects on the development and expression of bird song, on seasonal changes in memory capability, and mechanisms in the spinal cord.
• Roger Gorski
• Research from our laboratory has contributed significantly to the concept of sexual differentiation of the brain. According to this concept, the many functional and structural sex differences in the brain are imposed on what appears to be an inherently feminine (or perhaps neuter) brain by the action of testicular hormones during critical periods of development. The laboratory is currently focused on elucidating the functional significance of hormone-determined structural sex differences in the brain and the potential mechanisms by which gonadal hormones produce permanent changes in the brain. These questions are approached at multiple levels including neuroanatomical, behavioral and molecular approaches.
• John K. H. Lu
• We investigate the interactions between ovarian and neuroendocrine functions during aging by assessing how aging-associated changes in follicular dynamics and steroid production influence the neuroendocrine control of hypothalamic gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and pituitary gonadotropin secretion. Our recent work has found that, in middle-aged rats, a cessation of spontaneous ovulatory cycles is due to a diminished hypothalamic response to estradiol stimulation on GnRH release, not to a depletion of ovarian follicles. Successive administration of progesterone to these acyclic females not only reinstates and maintains regular ovulatory cycles until very old age, but also preserves normal gonadotropin surge responses to estradiol plus progesterone challenge.
• Paul Micevych
• We study the cellular and molecular events associated with sex steroid activation of the CNS. Our model system is sex steroid-induced plasticity of the limbic-hypothalamic circuit that regulates female reproductive behavior. Our main focus in this system is to integrate sex steroid-induced gene expression with synaptic events that control behavior.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Janice Juraska
• The effects of sex, hormones (especially gonadal) and the environment on the development of brain structure and of behavioral abilities.
• Jeffrey S. Mogil
• My research concerns central nervous system mechanisms underlying sensitivity to pain and pain inhibition. Specifically, I am interested in identifying and explaining sources of individual differences in pain-related traits, which display considerable clinical and experimental variability. Current studies are aimed at investigating: genetic factors (molecular gene mapping, development of genetic mouse models, transgenics), gender differences (both quantitative and qualitative), the activation of alternative pain-inhibitory mechanisms (opioid vs non-opioid), and the involvement of anti-opioid mechanisms (orphanin FQ) in pain modulation. These studies utilize behavioral, pharmacological, biochemical and molecular approaches. The overall goal of this research is to better understand the complex relationship between peripheral noxious stimulation and central pain perception, and to assist in the development of novel and/or improved strategies for pain relief.

• Wendy Heller
• Neurophysiological bases of social and emotional behavior.
• Gary Jackson
• Neuroendocrinology of reproduction
• Janice Juraska
• Neural development and the influence of sex, hormones, and the environment
• Victor Ramirez
• Molecular neuroendocrinology

• Benita S. Katzenellenbogen
• biochemistry, molecular biology, and physiology of steroid hormone action.
• Victor Ramirez
• Molecular neuroendocrinology

University of Minnesota at Twin Cities

Neuroscience

University of Pennsylvania

• Loretta Flanagan-Cato
• The mechanisms whereby steroid hormones cause transient changes in neuropeptide signalling in the brain to modulate female sexual

behavior in rats.

Neurobiology and Physiology

• Ingrid Waldron
• Sex differences in health; effects of social and psychological factors on health..

University of California at Berkeley

• Marc Breedlove
• Behavioral endocrinology; developmental neurobiology; sex differences in the nervous system
• Lucia Jacobs
• Ecology and evolution of learning: memory specializations in food storing mammals; sex and species differences in spatial cognition and brain structure.

• Stephen E. Glickman
• In recent years, my research has focused on hormonal substrates of  behavior and morphology in spotted hyenas, with particular attention to issues of sexual differentiation.
• Tyrone B. Hayes
• My research focuses on the role of steriod hormones in amphibian development and I conduct both laboratory and field studies in the U.S. and Africa. The two main areas of interest are metamorphosis and sex differentiation, but I am also interested in growth (larval and adult) and hormonal regulation of aggressive behavior.
• Paul Licht
• Research in my laboratory takes a broad comparative approach to studying the endocrine system, involving diverse species and hormonal actions. One topic of current interest revolves around the actions of steroid hormones, especially in relation to the hormonal basis of virilization in female mammals, as in the hyena.
• Thelma E. Rowell
• Primate behavior and reproductive cycles

University of Washington

• Lois McDermott
• Human Sexuality and reproductive physiology, adult clinical psychology.

• Daniel Dorsa
• Molecular Events involved in Steroid Hormone and Psychotheraputic Drug Action in the Brain Steroid hormones play a critical

role in determining patterns of neuronal development in the cental nervous system.
• Robert Steiner
• Reproduction in mammals is governed by a hormonal communication system linking the brain and pituitary to the gonads.

Princeton University

Cornell University

• Timothy DeVoogd
• Neural plasticity; sex differences in neuroanatomy and behavior; neurobiology of learning
• Elizabeth Regan
• Animal social behavior, especially reproductive behavior; hormones and behavior; sexual differentiation; neural and neuroendocrine mechanisms of reproductive behavior in birds

• Andrew Bass
• Research in our laboratory focuses on the characterization of sex differences in the morphology of single, physiologically-identified cells in the vertebrate nervous system. An overall goal is to understand the causal cellular mechanisms underlying the dynamic interplay between central and peripheral elements in sexual differentiation of the brain.
• Steven Emlen
• Here he has studied topics as diverse as (3) the costs and benefits of group living, (4) the adaptive bases of sex differences in behavior, (5) the role of ecological factors in shaping mating systems (monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, and promiscuity), (6) the evolution of cooperative and altruistic behavior in animal societies, and (7) the formation, stability, and social dynamics of families among animals. He has also speculated (8) on how the incorporation of an evolutionary framework can increase our understanding of the human social condition.

University of Wisconsin at Madison

Columbia University

• Darcy Kelley
• It is now widely accepted that, with the exception of the gonads themselves, most morphological and functional differences between male and female vertebrates result from the action of gonadal hormones, particularly the androgens and the estrogens. While our understanding of the molecular actions of steroids has advanced recently, we do not yet have explanations for how hormones direct the cascade of developmental events responsible for the expression of the female and the male phenotypes. It is to this latter problem that the work of our laboratory is addressed.

Harvard University

Neurology

Johns Hopkins University

• Randy Nelson Ph.D.
• Influence of Hormones and Immune Function on Behavior

• Gregory Ball
• Biopsychology, neuroendocrine and neurochemical basis of birdsong learning and production, behavioral neuroendocrinology, neuroethology

University of California at San Diego

• Samuel S.C. Yen
• The major overall theme of my research has been the neuroendocrine-metabolic regulation of the human menstrual cycle and its disorders. These works involved, in the past thirty years, defining the key controller of the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis (HPO) by the pulsatile secretion of GnRH neurons in the arcuate nucleus. The inhibitory and facilitory role of ovarian steroids/inhibin on GnRH/gonadotropin output and their modulators (neuropeptides and catecholamines) have been investigated and are still ongoing. In addition, we are currently preoccupied on metabolic milieu/body composition and ob gene product, leptin and their impacts on the H-P-O axis in women. These women health issues also include the role of sex hormones in aging.
• Veronica J. Roberts
• Our laboratory studies the mechanisms by which peptide hormones and growth factors regulate mammalian embryogenesis and neuroendocrine control of the reproductive system. Research involves use of molecular biological, anatomical, and physiological techniques, and cell/tissue image analysis.
• Pamela L. Mellon
• The central nervous system controls physiological status by communicating through the neuroendocrine system. Our interests are the molecular regulation and development of the neuroendocrine system and its interactions with the central nervous system. Our model is the regulation of reproduction by the hypothalamus and pituitary of the mouse. Mammalian reproduction is regulated by a cascade of hormones initiated in the hypothalamus by gonadotropin- releasing hormone (GnRH) which regulates expression of the anterior pituitary gonadotropin hormones, luteinizing hormone (LH), and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH).

University of California at San Francisco

Washington University (St. Louis)

California Institute of Technology

Rockefeller University

• Fernando Nottebohm
• We have described brain circuits for vocal learning and for the production of learned vocalizations in songbirds, which show interesting features such as very late development, sexual dimorphism, hormone sensitivity, hemispheric dominance, a dual role in perception and productions, signal selectivity, intriguing molecular markers, adult neurogenesis, and neuronal replacement. Our long-term goals include understanding the relation between neuronal replacement and learning and the use of neurogenesis in the adult avian brain as a model for brain rejuvenation and self-repair.
• Donald W. Pfaff
• Steroid hormone receptors are among the best-studied eukaryotic transcription factors. We use this fact to open up the analysis of gene expression in neurons of the forebrain, with an emphasis on sex hormones and on the hormones that respond to stress. In turn, the neurons we use are those that control the pituitary and hormone-dependent behaviors, so the molecular steps analyzed can be drawn into explanations of physiological events.
• Bruce S. McEwen
• Hormones are multi-purpose messengers that signal changes within target cells and coordinate brain and body function in reproduction, seasonal and diurnal cycles, and coping with other individuals and with the environment. Brain sexual differentiation, effects of stress on the developing and adult brain and various types of neuronal synaptic and neurochemical plasticity are regulated by circulating hormones of the adrenal cortex, thyroid and gonads. The immune system is also a target of hormones and of stress, and we study the regional regulation of immune function in the skin and in the brain. Our laboratory tries to link cellular and molecular mechanisms of neuronal differentiation and adult plasticity to behavioral and physiological process, with links to pathophysiology and nervous and mental disorders. At the cellular and molecular level., we investigate mechanisms of steroid and thyroid hormone action on expression of neural and immune system genes using quantitative utoradiography, immunocytochemistry,in situ hybridization and transgenic and gene knock-outmodels. At the organismal level we study learning and memory and their physiological correlates related to the hippocampus in animal models and we collaborate with laboratories involved in human brain imaging and neuropsychology to extend our findings to human cognition and brain structure.

Massachusettes Institute of Technology

Duke University

Neurobiology

• E. Lee Tyrey
• Research in this laboratory focuses on neuroendocrine mechanisms that regulate reproductive function in the female. Using the rat as a model, stereotaxic surgery, brain stimulation, electrolytic lesioning, and microsurgical transection of neuronal pathways are used to study brain systems that regulate the secretion of gonadotropins and prolactin from the anterior pituitary. Standard methods of radioimmunoassay are used to monitor serum hormone levels. Particular effort is directed to studying disturbances in pituitary function induced by reproductive toxicants, with the ultimate goal of identifying sites and mechanisms mediating adverse effects on reproductive function. Current studies address changes in luteinizing hormone and prolactin secretion that result from exposure to triazine herbicides.

University of Virginia

• Emilie F. Rissman
• Neuroendocrinology of Reproduction and Behavior.