B.A. Northwestern, M.A., Ph.D. McGill Professor

Office: SN3083

Phone: (709) 864-7685

Email: malsbury@play.psych.mun.ca

Affiliations: Behavioural Neuroscience

Research Interests

General Research Q.: How do gonadal hormones affect brain and behavior? Interests include: neural and endocrine determinants of reproductive and other social behaviors, sex differences in brain structure and function, trophic effects of hormones on brain structure, neuroanatomy (hypothalamic and limbic), neuropeptides, neuroendocrinology.

Most of my research has been aimed at developing a greater understanding of CNS mechanisms regulating mammalian reproductive behavior. Reproductive behaviors are intrinsically interesting but also provide examples of how hormones can change brain and behavior (plasticity). Gonadal hormones (estrogen and testosterone) change the brain by acting on hormone receptors (estrogen and androgen receptors) in particular regions of the brain. Recently I have been studying androgen receptors (ARs). Although ARs are found in areas of the brain important for reproductive behavior, such as the hypothalamus and amygdala, they are also abundant in the hippocampus, a structure important for learning and memory. What are ARs doing in the hippocampus? I have been collaborating with Drs. Doris Babstock and Carolyn Harley on experiments that begin to answer this question.

Publications

Hebbard, P.C., King, R.R., Malsbury, C.W. & Harley, C.W. (2003). Two organizational effects of pubertal testosterone in male rats: Transient social memory and a shift away from long-term potentiation following a tetanus in hippocampal CA1. Experimental Neurology, 182:470-475.

Malsbury, C.W. (2002). Hypothalamus. In Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Macmillan Reference Ltd.: London (brief review).

Harley, C.W., Malsbury, C.W., Squires, A., & Brown, R.A. (2000). Testosterone decreases CA1 plasticity in vivo in gonadectomized male rats. Hippocampus 10(6):693-7.

Babstock, D., Malsbury, C.W. & Harley, C.W. (1997). The dorsal locus coeruleus is larger in male than in female Sprague-Dawley rats. Neuroscience Letters, 224: 157-160.

Kerchner, M., Malsbury, C.W., Ward, O.B. & Ward, I.L. (1995). Sexually dimorphic components of the medial amygdala are resistant to the demasculinizing effect of prenatal stress. Brain Res., 672: 251-260.

Malsbury, C.W. & McKay, K. Neurotrophic effects of testosterone on the medial nucleus of the amygdala in the adult male rat. J. Neuroendocrinology, 6: 57-69, 1994.