Iowa Women’s Brain Initiative aims to better understand anxiety and depression

Stevens, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, became interested in how pregnancy impacts both mother and child when she was expecting her first baby more than two decades ago. Training as both an adult and child psychiatrist at the time, she wondered about the origin of mental health struggles.

"We have so little understanding of where depression and anxiety come from," Stevens says. "We need more research on these topics, so patients can get answers."

Gumusoglu, a mother of three, completed her PhD in neuroscience and postdoctoral training in reproductive biology in the Carver College of Medicine.

"Pregnancy came into focus as such an important window of time for both women and their children," she says. "When someone is pregnant, they often see a provider upwards of 10 or more times in nine months. It's a tremendous opportunity with a high degree of patient access, and parents are extraordinarily motivated."

And yet, while science has made major strides by discovering targeted interventions for certain risks to the brain - think prescribing folic acid during pregnancy to minimize a baby's spina bifida risk - there are few interventions for brain disorders during early life.

At Iowa, discovering those interventions, and others for different periods of risk for women and girls will take a multidisciplinary team of collaborators, including Avrama Blackwell, VMD, PhD, the Roy J. Carver Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the UI College of Engineering; Jennifer Bermick, MD, associate professor in the Stead Family Department of Pediatrics; Sarah Ferri, PhD, assistant professor in the Stead Family Department of Pediatrics; Rainbo Hultman, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics; and Isaac Petersen, PhD, associate professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.