Stories of Women in Neuroscience · Stories of WiN

Dr. Zoe Donaldson

·1 hr 4 min·4 clips

Donaldson explains that prairie voles are one of only 3% to 5% of mammalian species that can form pair bonds.

1. Stories of Women in Neuroscience features Dr. Zoe Donaldson and her work on prairie vole pair bonding. 2. Meenakshi interviews Donaldson, who is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and a scientist trained in behavioral neuroendocrinology. 3. The episode asks how Donaldson moved from disliking labs in Reno, Nevada to studying the brain, hormones, and social behavior. 4. Donaldson says her mother was a graduate student studying pesticides in soil, and that childhood time in the lab made her think labs were "the most boring place in the entire world." 5. She says school changed her mind because she fell in love with interpreting data more than memorizing biology. 6. Donaldson describes an early interest in hormones, behavioral endocrinology, genetics, and the brain as the fields that finally intersected for her. 7. Her first major mentor was Susan Farbach at the University of Illinois, who studied bees and Manduca sexta tobacco hornworms. 8. Donaldson says Farbach told her a story about being asked whether she would "get married and have kids" while interviewing for a Marshall scholarship. 9. That mentorship helped Donaldson believe she could do ambitious scientific work and pursue a PhD. 10. At Emory University, Larry Young’s work on prairie voles gave her a direct path into oxytocin, vasopressin, and pair bonding. 11. She describes Young’s lab as publishing receptor-distribution work and a transgenic mouse carrying a prairie vole vasopressin receptor sequence. 12. Donaldson says a related project used a 3.5 kb upstream region from the vole vasopressin receptor 1a gene in mice. 13. The project did not create monogamy, but it did alter receptor levels in the hippocampus and amygdala and shift anxiety-related behavior. 14. She calls those repeat-containing regulatory elements "tuning knobs" for gene expression and says natural selection may act on them. 15. Donaldson explains that oxytocin supports rapid pair-bond formation in prairie voles, while vasopressin is more male-biased because of a testosterone response element in the vasopressin gene promoter. 16. She says her postdoctoral work at Columbia University with Ronnie Hen and Francis Champagne shifted her into mouse genetics, epigenetics, and human serotonin 1a receptor studies. 17. Donaldson says her own lab now uses calcium imaging, optogenetics, chemogenetics, and miniscopes to study partner-specific neurons in the nucleus accumbens. 18. She describes the lab style as exploratory and technically ambitious, with a focus on the right organism for the question rather than on mice alone. 19. People interested in pair bonding, social neurobiology, and career paths in neuroscience would likely want this episode. 20. People wanting a light, nontechnical conversation would probably skip it.

As heard by us

A grounded neuroscience profile that follows Zoe Donelson from early skepticism to data curiosity, vole research, and the realities of starting a lab.

This story stays grounded in a way that suits a science profile. It traces Dr. Zoe Donelson from Reno and an early skepticism about memorization toward a sharper interest in data, questions, and interpretation.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

How a lab-averse kid from Reno became a neuroscience professor studying vole behavior and pair bonding.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Stories of Women in Neuroscience