Contact
Biomedical Research Center251 Bayview Blvd.
Suite 200
Room 08A727
Baltimore, MD 21224
Email: kay.nisbett@nih.gov
Education
Ph.D. in Neuroscience - University of Illinois - Chicago - 2017-Current
M.S. in Chemistry - Wayne State University - 2015-2017
Research Interests
Kay is drawn to neuroscience for the same reason that she was drawn to chemistry – a passion for understanding the fundamental but complex dynamics driving interaction. In one case this interaction is within and between individuals and in the other, it is within and between molecules. This passion guides her broad interest in understanding the neural basis of psychiatric diseases as well as her current research on the role that oxytocin, a prosocial hormone, plays in disorders of depression, anxiety and drug addiction. Through her early predoctoral research, Kay determined that oxytocin reduces depression- and anxiety-like behavior in non-stressed male and female B6J and B6N mice. She is currently building on this knowledge to learn how chronic activation of the HPA axis may change this therapeutic-like response to oxytocin and whether other neural systems are directly involved in mediating oxytocin’s therapeutic-like effects.
Selected Publications
2019
Central oxytocin is anti-depressive and anxiolytic in B6 mice. Conference
Annual Society for Neuroscience National Conference 2019.
Annual Society for Neuroscience National Conference 2019.
Central oxytocin reduces anxiety- and depression-like behavior in non-social mouse models of anxiety and depression. Conference
University of Illinois – Chicago Neuroscience Day 2019.
2018
DFT Investigation of Ligand Photodissociation in $[$RuII(tpy)(bpy)(py)$]$2+ and $[$RuII(tpy)(Me2bpy)(py)$]$2+ Complexes Journal Article
In: Inorganic Chemistry, vol. 57, no. 1, pp. 231–240, 2018, ISBN: 0020-1669.
Emerging Therapeutic Role of PPAR--α in Cognition and Emotions Journal Article
In: Frontiers in Pharmacology, vol. 9, pp. 998, 2018, ISSN: 1663-9812.
