Liisa Hantsoo, PhD

Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. I am Director of Research in the Johns Hopkins Reproductive Mental Health Center, where my research and clinical work focus on the role of stress and ovarian hormones in women’s mental health across the lifespan. My primary research area is premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and I also do research related to perinatal and perimenopausal mental health, adverse childhood experiences, and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

I’m trained as a Clinical Psychologist, with a specialization in Health Psychology. Much of my work focuses on stress response in women at points of ovarian hormone fluctuation, e.g. across the menstrual cycle, perinatally, and perimenopausally. A main goal of my work is to better understand how interactions between the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) and hypothalamic pituitary gonadal (HPG) axes may contribute to risk for mood or anxiety disorders, such as postpartum depression or PMDD. To research this, I use techniques including acoustic startle, acute laboratory stressors, and biomarkers such as blood levels of inflammatory markers, HPA hormones, and neuroactive steroids. My work on these topics has been covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Fast Company, among others, and I have published in journals including JAMA, Lancet Psychiatry, and American Journal of Psychiatry. My research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, and March of Dimes. I have also collaborated with industry, including Ginger.io, Clue, and Flo Health. I am on the Clinical Advisory Board of the International Association of Premenstrual Disorders and I am a member of the National Network of Depression Centers (NNDC) Women & Mood Disorders Task Group, where I chair the Biological Mechanisms working group. I am passionate about improving research in and raising awareness about women’s mental health issues.

Dr. Liisa Hantsoo’s Medical Training
I completed my Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry under the mentorship of C. Neill Epperson, M.D., an expert in neuroactive steroids and sex differences. Prior to Penn, I completed my PhD in Clinical Psychology in the Ohio State University’s Department of Psychology. My research focused on stress and immune function, in the laboratory of Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, Ph.D. at OSU’s Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research. Here, I was particularly interested in how early life stress primes development of the stress response. At the beginning, my journey as a researcher started with zebrafish. While earning my Bachelor’s in Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University, I was fortunate to work in the laboratory of Marnie Halpern, Ph.D., who studied neural development in a zebrafish model. My work focused on the habenular nuclei, which are involved in anxiety and fear response, and was what first got me hooked on research.

Awarded: $50,000

https://www.liisahantsoo.com/