Biobehavioral Transitions Lab
Like development itself, the Biobehavioral Transitions Lab (BTL) has evolved over the past two decades as a research program devoted to the study of individuals as they pass through important life transitions. Biobehavioral transitions refer to turning points in the life span that have the potential for significantly affecting mental or physical health. The transitions examined have included the major biological changes of puberty and pregnancy and the social transition of entry into new school or living arrangements. Two research foci have characterized the programmatic work in the BTL: the study of the endocrine and neuroendocrine changes during puberty and the changes in antisocial behavior, a major public health problem, that occur during biobehavioral transitions. In brief, the studies are integrative and translational combining elements of behavioral neuroscience, endocrinology and developmental psychology.
The research is based on theoretical models that consider the inherent interaction between developing individuals, usually adolescents, and their environment. Specifically, a long-standing emphasis has been on how the transitional stress of puberty and its adrenal and gonadal steroid hormone changes affect emotions and aggressive behavior. The stress hormone, cortisol, and its precursors, like corticotropin releasing hormone, are examined along with adrenal and gonadal hormones. Findings have consistently shown that adolescents show wide individual differences in their cortisol responses to stressful circumstances. Adolescents who display antisocial behavior have shown the least cortisol reactivity or have the lowest cortisol levels. This phenomenon is known as the “attenuation hypothesis”. Recent directions in the BTL focus on how basal and cortisol reactivity and diurnal (daily) cortisol rhythms affect both obesity and sleep.
Students in the BTL will gain experience in data collection with human subjects, data management and analysis, biomedical ethical issues and collaboration across disciplines at national and international research sites. Undergraduate students who have worked in the lab have gone on to attend medical, public health, optometry, nursing and physician assistant graduate schools. Graduate students have taken positions in major universities and medical centers and public and private research and commercial settings.