Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci and current students Megan Kelly ’23, Amanda Gale ’23, Jasmine Belfield ’23, and Natalie Williams ’25, as well as alums Layla Avendano ’22, Cler Estoestra ’22, Brooke Frohock ’21, Lily Yepez ’22, and Bernard Sencherey ’22, recently published the article “Chronic periadolescent leuprolide exposure affects the development of reproductive physiology and behavior of female and male rats differently, but both mature after treatment termination” in Biology of Sex Differences.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci coauthored an article with Layla Avendano ’22, Isabel Candelario ’21, Cler Estoesta ’22, Brooke Frohock ’21, Kate Davis ’20, Megan Kelly ’23, Matt Oevermann ’21, Bernard Sencherey ’22, Erin Toro ’21, and Hannah Valdivia ’22 that was accepted for publication by Physiology & Behavior.The project, titled “Daily GnRH Agonist Treatment Effectively Delayed Puberty in Female Rats without Long-Term Effects on Sexual Behavior or Estrous Cyclicity,” was supported by a grant from the American Psychological Foundation. Part of the work also was supported by SCOPE funding.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci was recently awarded the American Psychological Foundations 2021 Division 1–Society for General Psychology Mary Whiton Calkins Grant. The grant will support research on the development of an animal model of puberty delay and gender-affirming hormone treatment to better understand the long-term outcomes of puberty suppression and adult hormone treatment in the context of gender transition. Mary Whiton Calkins was the first woman to preside as president of the American Psychological Association in 1905.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci recently published an article that was a collaboration across three countries investigating the patterning of male sexual behavior in two strains of rats. The article, “Male Rat Sexual Behavior: Insights from Inter-Copulatory Intervals,” was published in Behavioral Processesthis month.

Kate Davis ’20 and Hannah Hanson ’22 conducted a SCOPE project under the supervision of Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci, which was recently published in Physiology & Behavior. This collaboration also involved Jessica Bolton ’10, who will soon begin a tenure-track position at Georgia State University. Davis, a current graduate student in the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin, designed the project, and together, the team found that using an animal model of poverty caused long-term deleterious effects on reproductive physiology and behavior. Neonatal poverty disrupted maternal behavior, which accelerated physiological maturation in females but delayed sexual maturation in males. However, both male and female rats displayed enhanced sexual motivation. These results have implications for precocious sexual behavior and disrupted puberty in children who are born into poverty. This research was also supported by a Sam Taylor Award.