Zoe R. Donaldson facts for kids

Zoe R. Donaldson is an American neuroscientist and a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. She studies how the brain and genes help animals form social bonds and behave with each other. Her research helps us understand why some people might be more likely to face mental health challenges. Zoe Donaldson is known for using prairie voles, which are small animals that form strong pairs, to study social behaviors. She has also created new tools to study these voles in the lab. This helps scientists better understand how the brain creates strong social connections.

Early Life and Education

Zoe Donaldson grew up in Reno, Nevada. When she was 16, she left high school early to attend college classes at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In 2000, she earned her Associate of Arts Degree. She then went on to study at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

While at UCLA, Donaldson traveled to West Africa to study Malaria. Later, she worked with a mentor named Barney Schlinger. Her research focused on how certain hormones affected how birds behaved when trying to find a mate. She presented her findings at several science meetings. In 2002, at age 21, Donaldson completed her Bachelor of Science degree.

Graduate Studies at Emory

After UCLA, Donaldson began her graduate studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She worked with Larry J. Young in the Department of Psychiatry. There, she used prairie voles to study how the brain controls social behavior. She looked at the roles of chemicals like oxytocin and vasopressin in these behaviors.

Donaldson specifically studied how small differences in genes could affect behavior. She created special mouse lines and also developed new ways to study genes in voles. Her work helped scientists explore how a specific gene, called V1aR, affects social connections in voles. She found that this gene is very important for voles to form and show their partner preferences.

Postdoctoral Research at Columbia

Donaldson earned her PhD in Neuroscience in 2009. She then moved to New York City for her postdoctoral training at Columbia University. In René Hen's lab, she studied how a brain receptor called Serotonin 1A (5-HT1A) affects behavior.

She found that if the signaling of 5-HT1A was reduced early in life, it could lead to increased anxiety and less social interaction later on. This showed how early brain development can impact behavior and how likely someone is to face certain challenges.

Career and Research

In 2016, Zoe Donaldson joined the University of Colorado Boulder. She became an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. She is also part of the Center for Neuroscience.

Donaldson leads the Donaldson Lab, where her team uses mice and voles to study why behaviors differ among individuals. Her research helps explain why certain genetic or environmental factors might increase the chance of mental health challenges for some people. She especially focuses on how social relationships affect our mood and behavior. For example, she tries to understand how losing a partner can cause feelings of pain and sadness in the brain. One of her main techniques is called in vivo calcium imaging, which lets her see brain activity in living animals. She also continues to develop new genetic tools for studying voles.

Understanding Social Buffering

Social buffering is when an animal feels less stressed or scared when another animal is nearby. Zoe Donaldson has explored this idea. She studied how activating certain brain cells involved in social interactions could reduce fear. She found that if she reactivated brain cells that were active when an animal was with a cage-mate, it helped reduce fear when the animal was in a scary situation. This is like mimicking the comforting feeling of social buffering.

How Pair Bonds Form in the Brain

Since Donaldson is a leader in using voles to study social behavior, she wanted to understand how these monogamous animals form their strong pair bonds. Using a technique called in vivo calcium imaging, she watched the activity of brain cells in a specific area called the nucleus accumbens. She found that certain brain cells became active when a vole's partner approached. Over time, more and more brain cells responded to the partner, and this increase predicted how strong the pair bond would become.

Awards and Honors

• 2019 IBANGS Young Scientist Award Edinburgh
• 2018 NIH New Innovator Award Recipient
• 2018 National Science Foundation Edge Award
• 2018 Dana Foundation Award - Grant Mahoney Neuroimaging Program
• 2017 Whitehall Foundation Award
• 2009 Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar
• 2003 HHMI Predoctoral Fellowship