Neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders are profoundly gender biased across the lifespan, with boys experiencing higher rates of neurodivergence during development, resulting in more frequent diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit and hyperactivity and early onset schizophrenia; while women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety and compulsion-related conditions.

Disentangling sex and gender in humans is confoundingly complex, compelling the use of animal models to explore the biological origins of sex differences in the brain. Using the laboratory rat as a model, Margaret McCarthy’s lab focuses on early life programming of the brain by gonadal hormones that differ in males and females, leading to surprising roles for immune cells and signaling molecules traditionally thought to be inducers of inflammation. She finds that cell-to-cell communication is essential, with distinct but intertwined roles for astrocytes, microglia and neurons, all occurring in a regionally specific manner with unique functional and behavioral outcomes.

This talk will focus on the neural underpinnings of a transient but essential behavior — adolescent social play — and describe new findings of transient immune populations in the brain, suggesting heretofore unknown sensitive periods.

About the Speaker

Margaret McCarthy received a doctoral degree from the Institute of Animal Behavior at Rutgers University, completed postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University in New York and was a National Research Council Fellow at NIH-NIAAA, before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1993. She was a professor in the Department of Physiology before becoming the chair of the Department of Pharmacology in 2011 in which capacity she served until 2024.

McCarthy has a long-standing interest in the cellular mechanisms establishing sex differences in the brain. She uses a combined behavioral and mechanistic approach in the laboratory rat to understand both normal brain development and how these processes might go selectively awry in males versus females.

McCarthy is the inaugural director of the University of Maryland – Medicine Institute for Neuroscience Discovery (UM-MIND), a fellow with AAAS and ACNP, and former president of the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences and the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2024.

About the Claritas Distinguished Lecture in the Sciences

George E. ’64 and Margaret Lauver ’66 Harris endowed the Distinguished Visitor Program at 体育买球官网 University. This program is designed to facilitate lectures, seminars or residencies by nationally acclaimed figures in business, government, or education, focusing on topics of public interest. The series invites a distinguished scholar in the sciences to deliver a public address on our campus, usually in the fall of the academic year andis organized by the School of Natural & Social Sciences.