The federal government’s Canada Research Chairs program invests up to $311 million per year to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. Chairholders are recognized to be national and international experts in the fields of engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences, humanities and social sciences. Brock University has 12 active Canada Research Chairs. This monthly series profiles the work, and lives, of Brock’s Chairholders.

When Paula Duarte-Guterman first introduces herself to a new group of students, she likes to tell them about the two loves of her scientific life.

The first she met in a high school biology class. The second came a few years later during her time as a graduate student.

“I love hormones,” says the Brock University Assistant Professor of Psychology. “I was trained as a biologist, and I became interested in how hormones regulate brain function.

“And then I fell in love with behaviour,” she says. “Hormones and behaviour are very much interconnected. We know that hormones regulate behaviour, but then behaviour also regulates hormones.”

As Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Neuroscience, Duarte-Guterman studies how male and female hormones, parenthood and aging affect the remodelling of brain circuits in the hippocampus, a region of the brain regulating learning, memory, stress and anxiety.

Neurons — cells in the brain and nervous system that transmit messages — enable the body to function. Neurons that link up to carry out specific functions form neural circuits.

The brain continually reorganizes, changes, destroys and creates neurons to compensate for damage and to respond to learning, changes in the environment and life experiences.

This process is called neuroplasticity, colloquially referred to as “rewiring the brain.”

Duarte-Guterman is particularly interested in the role parenthood plays in this process.

“We know that parenthood is a dramatic transformation in terms of having to adapt to take care of your offspring,” she says. “What does the parenthood experience entail for learning and memory and the regulation of stress and anxiety throughout the parent’s lifespan?”

Preliminary research in the field has uncovered a number of findings Duarte-Guterman aims to explain further.

For instance, studies from western Europe and North America have shown those having multiple motherhood experiences — four or more children — are at greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and certain types of dementia.

Other studies reveal hormonal changes may be remodelling the brains of fathers and mothers in similar ways, even though fathers themselves have not experienced pregnancy.

Duarte-Guterman and her team are using animal models to explore how the brain mechanisms of parents impact learning, memory and anxiety-related behaviours over time.

The parental experience has been a reoccurring theme in Duarte-Guterman’s entire life, starting with her supportive mother and father.

“Without them, I would still be in Colombia,” she says, recalling how they encouraged their children to pursue post-secondary education outside of the then unsafe and unstable country.

She earned a Bachelor of Science and a PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Ottawa before pursuing post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Ulm in Germany, the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. She joined Brock in 2021.

Duarte-Guterman’s passion for studying parenthood peaked when she became a mother during her second post-doctoral term.

“I don’t think I’m the same person who I was before I had my daughter,” she says. “I reflected on my transformation as a mother, especially my behavioural changes, my attitude towards things and how I react to things, and I thought my brain had changed.”

On the day she became a Canada Research Chair, Duarte-Guterman broke the news to her family, including her mother, who was visiting from Colombia.

“I showed my mother the letter from the Canadian Prime Minister; she was very, very proud,” Duarte-Guterman recalls. “Getting a letter from the Prime Minister was something I never expected when I came to Canada at the age of 18. That’s pretty cool.”