VKC member Erin Calipari, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Pharmacology. Her current research focuses on identifying similarities and differences in male and female brains and learning more about how differences influence decision-making and the navigation of their environments.
In the interview below, Calipari shares what inspires her research, what she has learned through her work, and how membership with the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center helps her achieve her goals.
Tell us about your attraction to developmental disabilities research.
The thing that I get most excited about is figuring out how the brain works. The brain is a highly complex organ that controls nearly everything our body does. From things we don’t even think about – like breathing or our hearts beating – to complex cognitive processes like decision-making. My work focuses on understanding how our brain controls our decisions. How do we decide to do something again or not? How do we decide what is good or bad? In my view, to really understand the differences that arise in developmental disorders we need to understand what specific cells in the brain are doing, how the function of these cells changes over typical development, and exactly how they control behavior. Once we identify exactly which cells in the brain control decision-making, we can determine how these are changed in developmental disorders, we can find new ways to hijack these pathways to improve symptoms. This could be via increasing the activity of underactive pathways or decreasing the activity of hyperactive pathways. All in all, my passion really hinges around understanding how the brain works and how we can use this understanding to treat individuals with a wide range of disorders. The exciting thing about scientific research is that we get to work together as a community to just figure out how things work and then use that understanding to try to help people. Centers like the VKC bring together the right mix of scientists to do just that.
What are your current research interests and what challenges does it address?
My largest research question right now is “how are the male and female brains different”? There are probably more similarities than differences between males and females. Brain structure and function is largely overlapping between the sexes. However, there are organizational differences that occur in the brain over development that promote sex-specific behaviors. My goal is to understand where sex differences exist and where they do not, and what this means for how males and females navigate their environments. This is very important in neurodevelopmental disorders as many have, one, higher prevalence in one sex, or, two, occur in both sexes but manifest in different ways. Understanding how males and females experience the world differently – and the neural basis for this – is so important to understanding how to identify and treat disorders effectively in the entire population.
Why is this work important?
Because my work is mostly basic, I don’t have “aha moments” that clinicians have with their patients. But what I will say is that I give a lot of talks to both scientists and clinicians, and I think one of the most exciting things for me is presenting our work on sex differences and helping people to better understand why biological sex is a critical variable in effectively treating patients. Women have been largely underserved in the basic science research space, and a large majority of the work on how the brain works has been done on male subjects. As we start to uncover sex differences in the brain and how they emerge, we are also identifying that some of these differences make females particularly vulnerable to psychiatric diseases such as substance use disorder. Why they take drugs in the first place is often different than males. The trajectory from first use to the development of addiction is faster. Women are more likely to relapse, and the factors that trigger relapse are often different. Because of this type of work, we (both basic scientists and clinicians) are realizing that their symptoms may be different, co-morbidities may be different, and their treatment should be different as well. These conversations that stem from my work are really exciting for me because they actually have the potential to have an impact.
What are your reasons for becoming a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center member? How does the VKC enhance the work you do?
I love science, but the best part of doing it is being in a community of researchers who have a common goal. The VKC has world-class researchers using cutting-edge technology to figure out how the brain works and how changes that occur over development give rise to different disorders. This is the perfect place for me to collaborate with researchers in the VKC and be inspired by the amazing work that they are doing.
