PHILADELPHIA Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (www.med.upenn.edu) have been awarded a $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish a new translational interdisciplinary research center to explore the role of sex and gender in behavioral health.

The new Center for the Study of Sex and Gender in Behavioral Health will be led by C. Neill Epperson, MD, associate professor of Psychiatry and founder and director of the Penn Center for Women's Behavioral Wellness, as principal investigator, along with Tracy L. Bale, PhD, Center co-director and associate professor of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine and director, Neuroscience Center at the University of Pennsylvania School Of Veterinary Medicine.

It is well established that sex and gender are critical determinants of mental health and mental illness. But what isnt clear is how hormonal developmental milestones such as puberty and early life traumatic events interact to impact neuropsychiatric health in women across the lifespan, said Dr. Epperson. Using behavioral and molecular models of stress and reproductive neuroendocrinology, psychophysiology, and neuroimaging, the new Center for the Study of Sex and Gender in Behavioral Health will investigate the unique mechanisms at play in womens behavioral health.

Studies have found that gender differences occur particularly in the rates of common mental disorders - depression, anxiety and somatic complaints. These disorders, in which women predominate, affect approximately 1 in 3 people in the community and constitute a serious public health problem.

This new Center provides a powerful mechanism by which we can translate results from an animal model examining early life stress directly to human studies, bench to bedside and back again, said Dr. Bale. Our frequent interactions as a research team mean that we can discuss our results as they are obtained, immediately implementing important new directions and outcomes.

The new Centers research projects will focus on how the experience of early childhood adversity in womens lives reprograms the brain toward stress dysregulation, and how this intersects with periods of dynamic hormonal flux across the life span, including pregnancy and aging. While the Centers present studies will focus primarily in the translational neuroscience of the sex bias for affective disturbances in females, Drs. Epperson and Bale will promote the inclusion of sex and gender as factors in research across all Schools, Centers and Institutes at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $479.3 million awarded in the 2011 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; and Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Penn Medicine also includes additional patient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2011, Penn Medicine provided $854 million to benefit our community.

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