Our Faculty and Staff

Mary "Allie" Holschbach, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at NSU's College of Psychology. Dr. Holschbach attended the University of Wisconsin-- Madison as an undergraduate, where she completed an Honors Thesis studying the relationship between testosterone, pair-bonding, and paternal behavior in California mice. She then earned Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Michigan State University. Her dissertation work discovered novel neuroplasticity in the serotonin system of adult female rats before mating, during pregnancy, and during the postpartum period and examined the role the serotonergic dorsal raphe plays in postpartum social behaviors. She completed Postdoctoral Training at Colorado State University, where she studied sex differences in developmental expression of Estrogen Receptor Beta in the prefrontal cortex as well as how the serotonin system is affected by stress in male and female mice.

At NSU Florida Dr. Allie Holschbach works with collaborators and a stellar team of research assistants using rodent models to study the neural underpinnings of social and emotional behavior and the long-lasting consequences social interactions can have on hormones, the brain, and behavior. Current research is focused on long-term effects of motherhood (reproductive and parental experience) on neural and cognitive aging in typical females and those with features of dementia (e.g. transgenic models of Alzheimer’s disease). Our recent data show that motherhood mitigates cognitive impairments after aging, especially in AD mice. Analyses of the brains of these mice will elucidate whether these cognitive benefits of motherhood coincide with reduced neuropathology and enhanced neuroplasticity. We also have follow-up experiments investigating factors that may help mothers and nonmothers after aging and testing whether peripartum stress interferes with the beneficial impacts of motherhood.

• Allie Holschbach intro video