Zoe R. Donaldson

Zoe R. Donaldson is an American neuroscientist and Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Donaldson explores the neurobiological and genetic mechanisms of social bonding and social behavior in rodents. Her work will help to elucidate how variations in genetics and circuit activity across the population predispose certain individuals to mental illness. Donaldson is a pioneer in the use of the monogamous prairie voles to study social behaviors and has been developing novel genetic tools, since her graduate work at Emory University, to study voles in the lab to better understand the neural circuits underlying pair bonding.

Zoe Donaldson
Born
Reno, Nevada
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles
Emory University
Columbia University
Known forUsing prairie voles to study the neural mechanisms of social behavior
Awards2019 IBANGS Young Scientist Award Edinburgh, 2018 NIH New Innovator Award Recipient, 2009 Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar, 2003 HHMI Predoctoral Fellowship
Scientific career
FieldsNeuroscience
InstitutionsUniversity of Colorado Boulder

Early life and education

Donaldson was raised in Reno, Nevada.[1] At the age of 16, Donaldson left high school to pursue college level classes at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.[1] In 2000, she had completed her Associate of Arts Degree and decided to pursue her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.[2] During her time at UCLA, Donaldson travelled to West Africa to study Malaria, and later conducted research under the mentorship of Barney Schlinger.[1] Her research, supported by a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Fellowship, focused how androgen steroid signalling impacted courtship behavior in birds.[3] She presented her work at several conferences.[4]

In 2002, Donaldson completed her Bachelors of Science at the age of 21 and decided to pursue her graduate studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.[5] Donaldson studied under the mentorship of Larry J. Young in the Department of Psychiatry at Emory.[6] She used the monogamous Prairie Vole as a model organism to study the neural correlates of social behavior and the roles of oxytocin and vasopressin in driving social behaviors in these organisms.[1] specifically studied how genetic diversity in the regulatory genetic elements located upstream of the vassopressin receptor gene (VIaR) affect behavior.[7] She first explored variation at the AVPR1A locus in primates and found both single and duplicated alleles of this gene.[8] Following these findings, Donaldson created three mouse lines with which to study variation in the upstream regions of the AVPR1A gene.[7] In addition to her mouse models, Donaldson also created transgenic voles and RNAi technologies with which to probe the implications of variation in this gene on Vole social behavior.[7] Since her tools enable dissection of variations at the level of DNA and RNA and in two different model organisms, her graduate work equipped the field with the ability to probe the role of V1aR in novel and innovative ways.[7] Donaldson later probed the role of V1aR in the formation and expression of partner preferences in voles and found that V1aR is necessary for each of these processes to take place.[9]

Donaldson completed her PhD in Neuroscience in 2009, and moved to New York City to pursue her postdoctoral training at Columbia University under the mentorship of René Hen.[10] In Hen’s lab, Donaldson probed the role of the Serotonin 1A autoreceptor in behavior.[11] She first examined how suppression of 5-HT1A signalling in the raphe neurons early in life impacted anxiety and social behaviors.[11] Donaldson found that this early life decrease in 5-HT1A signalling led to increased anxiety and decreased social interaction later in life.[11] After seeing how early life modulation of 5-HT1R signalling impacted behavior later and predisposition to disease-like states, Donaldson then honed in on a specific polymorphism in this 5-HT1AR promoter that had been previously linked with psychiatric diseases.[12] Donaldson found that the rs6295G allele of 5-HT1AR is associated with increased risk for substance abuse, psychaitric hospitalization, and suicide attempts.[12] When they probed the expression of HTR1 in the brains of donors with the allele, they found that patterns of disrupted transcription correlated with depression and suicide.[12]

Career and research

In 2016, Donaldson was recruited to University of Colorado, Boulder and became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.[1] Donaldson is also affiliated with the Center for Neuroscience as an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.[5] Donaldson is the principal investigator of the Donaldson Lab, where she leads a research program centered around using mice and voles to explore the biological bases of variation in behavior.[5] Donalson’s work will help to elucidate why specific genetic or environmental factors increase the likelihood of mental illness in certain individuals.[13]  Specifically, Donaldson focuses on how social relationships modulate mood and behavior.[14] She tries to understand how losing a partner, social loss, causes pain and grief at the neural circuit level.[14] One of the main techniques that Donaldson uses to probe neural activity, and its relation to specific genes and behaviors, is in vivo calcium imaging and she also develops novel genetic tools with which to study neural mechanisms in voles.[13]

Social buffering

Social buffering is a phenomenon in which animals, in the presence of another animal, have attenuated stress and fear responses upon presentation of typically fearful stimuli.[15] Donaldson explored the potential in activating neurons involved in social processing to attenuate fear, mimicking the experience of social buffering.[15] She tagged neural ensembles that were activated upon encoding of a cagemate, and found that reactivation of these social ensembles in fearful contexts attenuated fear responses.[15]

Neural correlates of pair bonding

Since Donaldson is a pioneer in the use of voles to study social behavior, she wanted to pursue a very fundamental question about the neural mechanisms that drive monogamous voles to form pair bonds.[16] Using in vivo calcium imaging, Donaldson imaged the activity of neurons in the nucleus accumbens during pair bond formation and found that neurons specifically responded to partner approach and that the ensemble of neurons encoding partner approach increased in size over time and predicted the strength of the pair-bond.[16]

Awards and honors
  • 2019 IBANGS Young SCientist Award Edinburgh[17]
  • 2018 NIH New Innovator Award Recipient[18]
  • 2018 National Science Foundation Edge Award[19]
  • 2018 Dana Foundation Award - Grant Mahoney Neuroimaging Program[20]
  • 2017 Whitehall Foundation Award[21]
  • 2009 Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar[22]
  • 2003 HHMI Predoctoral Fellowship[20]

References
  1. "The CU Scientist Cracking the Love Code". Alumni Association. June 3, 2019. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  2. "I Am A Neuroscientist". Julie Thompson. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  3. Fusani, Leonida; Schultz, J. D.; Canoine, V.; Donaldson, Z.; Reineman, D. R.; Schlinger, B. A. (2002). "Androgen control of a complex avian courtship behavior". Society for Neuroscience: 781.4. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. "Zoe Donaldson - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.com. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  5. "Zoe Donaldson". Psychology and Neuroscience. June 22, 2015. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  6. ORCID. "Zoe Donaldson (0000-0001-6699-7905)". orcid.org. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  7. "Exploring the neurogenetics of sociality: Creation of models to assess the functional role of V1a receptor diversity - ProQuest". search.proquest.com. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  8. Donaldson, Zoe R.; Kondrashov, Fyodor A.; Putnam, Andrea; Bai, Yaohui; Stoinski, Tara L.; Hammock, Elizabeth AD; Young, Larry J. (June 23, 2008). "Evolution of a behavior-linked microsatellite-containing element in the 5' flanking region of the primate AVPR1Agene". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 8 (1): 180. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-180. ISSN 1471-2148. PMC 2483724. PMID 18573213.
  9. Donaldson, Zoe R.; Spiegel, Lauren; Young, Larry J. (February 2010). "Central vasopressin V1a receptor activation is independently necessary for both partner preference formation and expression in socially monogamous male prairie voles". Behavioral Neuroscience. 124 (1): 159–163. doi:10.1037/a0018094. ISSN 0735-7044. PMC 2846693. PMID 20141291.
  10. "Neurotree - Zoe R. Donaldson". neurotree.org. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  11. Donaldson, Zoe R.; Piel, David A.; Santos, Tabia L.; Richardson-Jones, Jesse; Leonardo, E. David; Beck, Sheryl G.; Champagne, Frances A.; Hen, René (January 2014). "Developmental Effects of Serotonin 1A Autoreceptors on Anxiety and Social Behavior". Neuropsychopharmacology. 39 (2): 291–302. doi:10.1038/npp.2013.185. ISSN 1740-634X. PMC 3870787. PMID 23907404.
  12. Zr, Donaldson; B, le Francois; Tl, Santos; Lm, Almli; M, Boldrini; Fa, Champagne; V, Arango; Jj, Mann; Ca, Stockmeier (March 1, 2016). "The Functional Serotonin 1a Receptor Promoter Polymorphism, rs6295, Is Associated With Psychiatric Illness and Differences in Transcription". Translational Psychiatry. 6 (3): e746. doi:10.1038/tp.2015.226. PMC 4872437. PMID 26926882.
  13. "Zoe Donaldson". Center for Neuroscience. November 28, 2016. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  14. "Projects". Donaldson Lab. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  15. Gutzeit, Vanessa A.; Ahuna, Kylia; Santos, Tabia L.; Cunningham, Ashley M.; Sadsad Rooney, Meghin; Muñoz Zamora, Andrea; Denny, Christine A.; Donaldson, Zoe R. (May 2020). "Optogenetic reactivation of prefrontal social neural ensembles mimics social buffering of fear". Neuropsychopharmacology. 45 (6): 1068–1077. doi:10.1038/s41386-020-0631-1. ISSN 1740-634X. PMC 7162965. PMID 32035426.
  16. Scribner, Jennifer L.; Vance, Eric A.; Protter, David S. W.; Sheeran, William M.; Saslow, Elliott; Cameron, Ryan T.; Klein, Eric M.; Jimenez, Jessica C.; Kheirbek, Mazen A.; Donaldson, Zoe R. (May 7, 2020). "A neuronal signature for monogamous reunion". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117 (20): 11076–11084. doi:10.1073/pnas.1917287117. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 7245077. PMID 32381740.
  17. "Zoe received IBANGS Young Scientist Award in Edinburgh". Donaldson Lab. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  18. "New Innovator Award Recipients 2018 | NIH Common Fund". commonfund.nih.gov. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  19. "NSF Award Search: Award#1827790 - EDGE: Tools for studying gene function in voles". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  20. "Cellular Imaging may Reveal the Neuronal Basis of Social Motivation and How it can be Disrupted". Dana Foundation. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  21. "Zoe Donaldson awarded a Whitehall Foundation Grant!". Donaldson Lab. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  22. "Zoe Donaldson | Vole Genetic Engineering | University of Colorado Boulder". www.colorado.edu. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
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