BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.2.2.1//EN TZID:America/Toronto X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Toronto BEGIN:VEVENT UID:180@womenshealthresearchcluster.com DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20251208T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20251208T000000 DTSTAMP:20260120T141021Z URL:https://womenshealthresearchcluster.com/events/thyroid-hormone-as-a-se x-specific-mediator-of-drug-reward/ SUMMARY:Thyroid Hormone as a Sex-Specific Mediator of Drug Reward DESCRIPTION:https://youtu.be/EfIhr76TcOg\n\nSpeaker: Dr. Deena Walker\, Ass istant Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience\, School of Medicine\, Oregon Health &\; Science University\n\nDeena Walker is an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience at Oregon Health &\; Scie nce University. She is passionate about understanding how hormones influen ce the brain and behavior and is dedicated to using her diverse training b ackground to identify precision-based treatments for neuropsychiatric diso rders\, particularly in women. Currently\, her lab is focused on how hormo nes influence sex-specific vulnerability in substance/alcohol use disorder . She moved to Portland\, Oregon in 2020 after doing her postdoctoral fell owship at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai where she studied the mole cular mechanisms of sex differences in addiction. As a PhD student at The University of Texas at Austin\, she studied how the brain controls ovulati on and menopause with a specific focus on hormonal regulation of gene expr ession. In recognition of her innovative and impactful science\, she has b een awarded several early career awards\, including the Frank A. Beach Ear ly Career Investigator Award from the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrin ology in 2023. In addition to her laboratory work\, Dr. Walker is active i n science outreach and storytelling. Her stories about the impact of her o wn life experiences on her scientific questions have been featured on the podcast StoryCollider.\n\n \;\n\nTalk summary: The molecular mechanism s underlying sex differences in motivation and reward are likely hijacked by drugs of abuse and serve as candidates underlying well-established sex differences in substance use disorder (SUD). Why males and females become addicted to drugs of abuse at different rates is an elusive and unanswered question that involves several variables including genetics\, social pres sures\, life experience\, and hormone signaling. Most studies investigatin g sex differences in drug-associated behaviors and transcription have focu sed on sexually dimorphic neuroendocrine systems like the reproductive axi s. However\, our lab investigates the thyroid hormone system\, a regulator of energy and metabolism\, as a candidate for regulating sex-specific mot ivated behaviors. Canonically\, thyroid hormones\, when bound to their rec eptors\, are transcription factors that mediate the transcriptional respon se to drugs of abuse. We will discuss our recent findings indicating that thyroid hormones are disrupted by drugs of abuse which are associated with transcriptional changes in the brain’s reward circuitry. We then build off of these data to show that central activation of thyroid hormone recep tors\, via treatment with a CNS-specific thyromimetic developed by our col laborators at OHSU\, reduces reward-related behaviors\, suggesting thyroid hormone signaling as a potential novel treatment for substance and alcoho l use disorder. Together our data not only suggest that thyroid hormone is a critical regulator of the rewarding properties of drugs of abuse\, but highlight ways in which sex-specific transcriptional responses to drugs of abuse can be leveraged to identify potential therapeutic targets for subs tance- and alcohol-use disorder.\n\n \;\n\nAgenda:\n\n12-12:45 pm EDT: Speaker presentation\n\n12:45-1:00 pm EDT: Question and answer period\n\n Register here ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://womenshealthresearchcluster.com/wp-conte nt/uploads/2025/07/4.png CATEGORIES:Women’s Health Seminar Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Toronto X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Toronto BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20251102T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR