Lisa Monteggia facts for kids

Lisa M. Monteggia is an American brain scientist, also known as a neuroscientist. She is a professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is also the director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute.

Dr. Monteggia studies how the brain works on a tiny, molecular level. She wants to understand the causes of mental health conditions like depression. Her work has led to important discoveries about how medicines for depression work. She also studies the role of genes in brain function.

Education and Early Career

Lisa Monteggia went to college at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She earned a bachelor's degree in microbiology in 1989 and a master's degree in biology a few years later. After graduating, she worked as a scientist for a company that makes medicines.

Later, she decided to continue her education and earned her PhD from the Chicago Medical School. For her research, she studied how the brain adapts to different chemicals. She looked at how certain brain cell parts, called glutamate receptors, changed over time.

After getting her PhD, Dr. Monteggia did more training at Yale University. There, she studied special channels in brain cells that help control their activity.

A Career Studying the Brain

In 2000, Dr. Monteggia started her own research lab at the UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. She became a full professor there in 2013. In 2018, she moved to Vanderbilt University to lead its Brain Institute. Her research focuses on a few key areas.

How Antidepressants Work

One of Dr. Monteggia's biggest research topics is understanding how medicines for depression, called antidepressants, work. She has focused on a special protein in the brain called BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor). Think of BDNF as a fertilizer for brain cells that helps them grow and make strong connections.

Her team discovered that BDNF is very important for antidepressants to be effective. They found that these medicines work best in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is involved in learning and memory. This discovery helps other scientists develop better treatments for depression.

Unlocking the Secrets of Rett Syndrome

Dr. Monteggia also studies a protein called MeCP2. This protein is important because when it doesn't work correctly, it can cause a rare genetic condition called Rett syndrome. Rett syndrome affects brain development, mainly in girls.

The MeCP2 protein acts like a switch. It can turn certain genes in the brain "off." Dr. Monteggia's research showed how MeCP2 controls the way brain cells communicate with each other. Understanding this helps explain what goes wrong in Rett syndrome and could lead to new ways to treat it.

Exploring New Treatments for Depression

In recent years, Dr. Monteggia has studied ketamine, a medicine that can help people with depression very quickly. Most antidepressants take weeks to start working, but ketamine can work in just a few hours.

Dr. Monteggia's lab wants to know why ketamine works so fast. They discovered that it changes how brain cells communicate in a unique way. By understanding its mechanism, scientists hope to create new, safer, and fast-acting treatments for mood disorders.

Awards and Recognition

Dr. Monteggia has received many awards for her important research. These awards recognize her as a leader in the field of neuroscience and mental health.

• 2005: Daniel X. Freedman Award for outstanding research
• 2011: Rising Star Award from the International Mental Health Research Organization
• 2011: Daniel H. Efron Research Award for her work that connects basic science to new treatments
• 2022: Elected to the National Academy of Medicine, one of the highest honors for a medical scientist