Dr. Maeson Latsko is an HBHL Postdoctoral Fellow, working at The Douglas Research Centre with Dr. Patricia Silveira and Dr. Michael Meaney.
Maeson’s research interests are child and adolescent mental health. She completed her undergrad and graduate studies at Kent State University in Ohio. “During undergrad, I was involved in the lab that I continued to work for during my PhD, because it really became my passion to understand relationships between childhood adversity and development.”
Throughout her graduate studies, Maeson discovered her appreciation for troubleshooting problems and experiments. She also realized the importance of scientific communication and translation, which she says her focus has been shifting towards. “When I was finishing grad school, I decided that I want to be involved in translational neuroscience: to work in a lab that looked at the basic science and the applied science and made sense between the two. And that’s what led me to this postdoc.”
What’s your post-doc research?
Often in pediatrics, people take the approach of simply looking at the environment to identify vulnerability or risk to developing psychopathologies. My lab studies gene by environment interactions, which is important because children who undergo trauma may not even be susceptible to that trauma. For instance, some may develop anxiety or depression, but some may not – we think this is because genes interact with certain environments that leave them more vulnerable to developing psychopathologies.
One of the things I’m doing is identifying a translational model of “biological sensitivity to context.” This model considers genetic predisposition and the environment, suggesting that children with certain genetic factors may have a higher propensity to developing psychopathologies in a negative environment, but these same individuals would thrive in a positive environment more-so than children without these genes.
Who inspires you?
My siblings – I think I’ve subconsciously used them as motivation to understand my work better. I’m one of four, so seeing how we have experienced trauma together and dealt with it differently, and also experienced a great childhood and how it shaped each of us to be our own individual people, has been an inspiration.
What are some of your non-science hobbies?
I do a lot of running. I always tell students that are interested in going into science that it is really good to have a hobby, because you need that off time. I took up running when I was in grad school – I think it’s an acceptable way to say: “Hey, I’m unavailable for the next 45 minutes.” It clears your mind and keeps you active and motivated, and you end up being more focused when you come back. I also love hiking or anything else that keeps me active and outdoor.
What’s your favourite component of the nervous system?
Corticosterone for sure. Or cortisol, in humans. My PhD was done with a focus in endocrinology and how endocrinology systems are affected by stress during adolescence. Corticosterone was my focus in the rodent model. I think that hormones are really underrated and that they do more to change the system than probably anything else. Corticosterone and its negative feedback loop – the higher it is, the more feedback it gives and shuts its whole system down – is my favourite. I find it fascinating.
What’s next?
As I mentioned, I have grown to be more passionate about scientific communication and translation. During grad school, I noticed this discrepancy between applied science and basic science. My lab did basic science research, and there was a lab down the hall that was doing almost the same research, except in humans – and there was no communication between our labs! I really enjoy giving talks about science, to people outside of my field of expertise or to people outside of research in general. I think that as a researcher I hold a responsibility to translate what I do to people outside of my field. I have grown interested in scientific communication for that reason and I hope to continue in that path.
