3do hatchling of Euprymna scolopes exposed to ethynl estradiol. ©CrookLab
Congratulations to Crook Lab MS graduate Stephanie Bazarini, who published her work titled “Environmental estrogen exposure disrupts sensory processing and nociceptive plasticity in the cephalopod, Euprymna scolopes”, this week in the Journal of Experimental Biology. This paper is based on Stephanie’s Masters thesis, in which she combined her interests in the role of estrogens in pain plasticity, and in comparative neurobiology of pain.
Her work demonstrates that both constant, low exposure , and brief, high-level exposure to synthetic estrogen in seawater can have detrimental effects on injury-induced neural and behavioral plasticity. Cephalopods like Euprymna scolopes are exceptionally vulnerable to predation, to injury and to coastal pollutants, and her study shows that these factors combine in ways that are likely to disrupt adaptive behaviors. Her work also suggests that estrogen’s role in modulating pain neural circuits extends beyond vertebrates, a highly novel and important finding for comparative and evolutionary neuroscience.
Congratulations Stephanie!!