Way to Solving the Plastics Waste Problem How the Body Responds to Stress

Featured Speaker: Professor Catherine Rivier

This lecture will discuss the mechanisms through which the brain is alerted by, and responds to, stressors. These include psychological or physical threats, traumas of various kinds, infections, inflammation and drugs such as alcohol. Specific brain regions, particularly the hypothalamus, are activated by the presence of stress and by the hormones used by the brain to respond to these challenges such as the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF). It has been demonstrated that CRF is essential for an adequate response to a stressor, a response that restores homeostasis, the physiological ‘status quo’. However, CRF is also responsible for some of the adverse effects of stress such as inhibition of reproductive functions.

Presenter Biography

Presenter: Catherine Rivier is a Professor Emerita, Salk Institute for biological studies. Her outstanding achievements include Best Women Scientist, member of the most frequently quoted scientific authors, and “the Trailblazer” award for women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. She obtained her Ph.D. in Physiology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, before she began her research at the Salk Institute in close collaboration with her late husband, Dr. Jean Rivier.

Coordinator: Hiromi Imai -Dellario