Tallie Z. Baram
Professor, Pediatrics, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Neurology, Physiology and Biophysics
School of Medicine
University of California, Irvine
Title
Modern-life Stress, Estrogen and Memory Disorders: Corrupting plasticity?
Abstract
More details soon
Biosketch
Tallie Z. Baram, MD, PhD is the Danette Shepard, Bren and distinguished professor at UCI School of Medicine. She is a developmental neuroscientist and child neurologist who has focused her research efforts on the influence of early-life experiences on brain maturation and the underlying mechanisms. Throughout her career, Baram has studied this topic in two broad contexts, pertaining, respectively, to stress-related and activity-dependent plasticity: a) How early-life experiences including adversity/stress promote enduring vulnerability to cognitive and emotional disorders; and b) how early-life seizures, especially those associated with fever, can convert a normal brain into an epileptic one.
A common thread of Baram’s research program is the use of multiple and trans-disciplinary technologies and levels of analysis including molecular, cellular and circuit methods and cross-species studies. She employed these to uncover how adverse early-life experiences sculpt memory-, stress- and reward-related circuit maturation. In this context, she has uncovered novel types of adversity in humans and rodents (unpredictable sequences of sensory signals) that contributes to aberrant circuit maturation (e.g., Birnie & Baram, Science, 2022). Additionally, she has focused on the overarching hypothesis that neuronal populations and projections expressing the stress-related peptide CRH may be particularly vulnerable to early-life adversity, resulting in disrupted operations of networks that include them. This notion has led to identification of novel CRH+ reward-circuit projections, and assessments of established CRH-cell populations using single-cell transcriptomics.
The Baram lab has pioneered naturalistic, translationally-relevant paradigms of early-life adversity (ELA) that have been embraced world-wide, and demonstrated the causal influence of ELA on cognitive and emotional health via convergent actions of multiple mediators (including locally-synthesized CRH). More recently, through collaborative work in her NIH funded Conte Center and a recent collaborative award with CHOC from the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine, she is translating her discoveries back to the clinic. Her work has been published in leading journals (e.g., Science, Nature Rev Neurosci, Nature Medicine, Nature Neurosci) and cited over 30,000 times (H = 96, google scholar). Baram’s discoveries have been universally recognized, apparent from awards including the NIH NINDS Javits Merit Award, premier Research Awards of the AES (2005), CNS (2013), ANA (2014) and AAN (2018), and a Public Impact Award (CNLM, 2022).
Baram strives to contribute to the scientific community by, for examples, chairing NIH study sections and involvement in editorial boards and professional organizations, including ACNP. She is passionate and committed to mentoring, with emphasis on scientific rigor and inclusivity: Baram is PI of one of only two NIH-funded T32s focused on Epilepsy, and mentor of several recent K99 and F30 awardees. Many of her trainees, from diverse racial and geographical backgrounds are now contributing independently and successfully to our understanding of the brain in health and disease.
