Carolyn I. Rodriguez facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Carolyn Rodriguez
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Rodriguez speaks at the World Economic Forum in 2019
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| Born | c. 1981 (age 43–44) |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Known for | Discovering therapeutic potential of Ketamine in treating OCD |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience, psychiatry |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
Carolyn I. Rodriguez is a doctor and scientist from Puerto Rico. She studies the brain and helps people with OCD. Dr. Rodriguez works at Stanford University. She is a professor and leads several research programs there. She also directs a special lab that studies brain imaging.
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Early Life and Education
Carolyn Rodriguez was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She later moved to Boston for college. She studied Computer Science at Harvard University. After college, she continued her studies at Harvard. She earned both a medical degree (MD) and a PhD in Neuroscience.
During her PhD, Dr. Rodriguez worked with Susan Dymecki. She created a new way to map how parts of the brain develop. This tool helped scientists understand how different brain cells form. Many researchers still use her method today.
After her studies in Boston, Dr. Rodriguez moved to New York City. She completed her medical training at Columbia University Medical Center. She focused on helping patients with OCD. She saw how tough OCD was for patients. She also noticed how long it took for treatments to work. This made her want to find faster and better ways to help.
She continued her research at Columbia. There, she explored how a medicine called Ketamine could quickly help people with OCD. In 2015, Dr. Rodriguez joined Stanford University Medical Center.
Understanding Brain Development
During her graduate studies, Dr. Rodriguez wanted to learn how certain brain cells develop. These cells are part of the precerebellar system, which helps with movement. She created a special genetic tool. This tool allowed her to track how these cells grew from their earliest stages.
Using her new tool, she found where these brain cells came from. She also discovered that different parts of the cerebellum (a brain area) might start forming even earlier than thought. Her findings were published in a science journal in 2000. Her tool has been very useful for other brain scientists.
Researching OCD and Hoarding Disorder
Dr. Rodriguez has done important work on OCD. She also studies Hoarding Disorder. She looked at how a brain chemical called glutamate affects OCD. She found that medicines that change glutamate levels might help.
She and her team tested a medicine called minocycline. They wanted to see if it could help with OCD symptoms. They found it might help young people with OCD. It also seemed to improve symptoms of hoarding. These results showed that more studies were needed for minocycline.
In 2015, Dr. Rodriguez published a major paper. It showed that Ketamine could quickly help people with OCD. Patients had fewer obsessions for over a week after treatment. This was the first study to show that changing glutamate signals could have fast and lasting effects for OCD patients.
Dr. Rodriguez also found that Hoarding Disorder was common in New York City. She saw this in people who needed help to avoid eviction. Her work showed that treating hoarding could help prevent homelessness. This led her to look for new ways to treat Hoarding Disorder.
Career and Research at Stanford
In 2015, Dr. Rodriguez became a professor at Stanford University. She joined the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences department. She also became a director of several research programs. These include the Stanford Hoarding Disorders Research Program and the Translational OCD Research Program.
Her lab, called the Rodriguez Lab, studies how emotions and behaviors work in the brain. They want to find fast-acting treatments for mental illnesses. They look for new medicines and test them in clinical trials. Their main focus is OCD, but they also work on Hoarding Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Dr. Rodriguez also helps veterans with their mental health. In 2018, she became an Associate Chair at Stanford Medical School. She works to make sure everyone feels included and valued. She also became the Clinical Lab Director at the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging.
New Treatments for OCD
After her work at Columbia, Dr. Rodriguez kept studying Ketamine for OCD. She wanted to understand how it worked and make it even better. She and her team used special brain scans to see Ketamine's effects. They found that Ketamine increased levels of GABA in the brain. GABA is a chemical that helps calm brain activity. This finding suggested that people with OCD might have lower GABA activity.
Ketamine helped with OCD symptoms, but it could also cause side effects like nausea. So, Dr. Rodriguez looked for other medicines that work like Ketamine but have fewer side effects. They found a medicine called Rapastinel. It also helped with OCD symptoms. Rapastinel had fewer side effects than Ketamine. However, its effects did not last as long as Ketamine's. This means more research is needed to find long-lasting treatments.
Advocacy and Public Awareness
Dr. Rodriguez cares deeply about fairness and diversity in science and medicine. She has worked to support scientists from underrepresented groups. She also wrote an article about the challenges women face in medicine. She believes that having more diverse people in science leads to new and better ideas. She suggests simple steps to help more women get leadership roles in medicine.
As a writer for the Huffington Post, Dr. Rodriguez shares information with the public. She writes about why research is important. She also explains how people can help advance research for mental illnesses like OCD. Her articles also teach people about the different stages of Ketamine research for mental health.
Awards and Honors
- 2019 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)
- 2018 Chairman's Annual Award for Excellence Across Multiple Missions – Stanford Medical School
- 2017 Eva King Killam Research Award for Outstanding Translational Research Contributions – ACNP
- 2017 A.E. Bennett Research Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical/Translational Research – Society for Biological Psychiatry
- 2017 Gerald R. Klerman Award Honorable Mention for outstanding clinical research achievement – Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
- 2015 Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Award, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- 2014 Neuropsychopharmacology Editor's Award for Transformative Original Report (NEATOR) Award, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
- 2014 Robins/Guze Award, American Psychopathological Association
- 2009 and 2014 Young Investigator Award from Brain and Behavior Research Foundation
Images for kids
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Rodriguez speaks at the World Economic Forum in 2019
