Early Life Stress: Impact on Brain and Psychopathology

Gal Richter-Levin is a professor at the University of Haifa, in Israel. Richter-Levin’s main research interests lie in behavioral neuroscience and the neurobiology of stress-related psychopathology. He received his undergraduate degree in agriculture from The Hebrew University and his PhD in neurobiology from The Weizmann Institute. He completed his postdoctoral training at The National Institute for Medical Research, in London.

Marian Joëls is professor of neurobiology of environmental factors, and dean as well as a board member of the University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands. She obtained her PhD degree in Utrecht with David de Wied and carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Texas Medical Branch and the Scripps Research Institute. Between 1991 and 2009 she was appointed at the University of Amsterdam, and between 2009 and 2016 she served as a professor of neuroscience and scientific director of the Brain Center Rudolf Magnus at University Medical Center Utrecht. Her research focuses on stress hormone actions in the brain, with the aim of delineating the cellular and network effects of stress hormones in limbic brain regions, understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms, and examining the functional consequences for behavior, in health and disease. Her work has been published in more than 300 articles, and she currently is an ISI Highly Cited author. She is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as president of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies from 2012–2014.

Mathias V. Schmidt is a principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany. He earned his PhD in neuroscience from the Leiden University, in the Netherlands, and his postdoctoral training at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry and the Ludwig Maximilians University, in Munich. Schmidt's research focuses on unraveling the molecular underpinnings of stress-related disorders.

Nichola Brydges is a Jane Hodge Foundation research fellow in the Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute at Cardiff University, in Wales. Her research focuses on the role early life stress plays in the development of psychiatric illness, with a particular focus on social behavior and hippocampal function. She earned her BSc in biology from the University of Sheffield, in England, and her PhD in animal cognition, physiology, and behavior from the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland.