Catherine J. Peña, Ph.D. (Princeton University) – Hybrid Epigenetics Monthly Seminar Series

The broad goal of the Peña Lab is to understand mechanistically how early life experiences are encoded and maintained into adulthood to have long-lasting impact on behavior. The lab is currently focused on understanding how early life stress increases sensitivity to subsequent stress. This research is translationally motivated by the robust clinical finding that child maltreatment and other forms of early life stress increase the lifetime risk of depression and other mood, anxiety, and drug disorders. Studies in humans and animals suggest that early life stress sensitizes individuals to stress later in life, leading to a first appearance or synergistic worsening of depression-like symptoms after additional stress.