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Profiles of women in science: Prof. Catharine Winstanley of the University of British Columbia

2019; Wiley; Volume: 49; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/ejn.14336

1460-9568

Dana L. Helmreich,

Educational Methods and Teacher Development

Dr. Catharine Winstanley obtained a first class honours degree in Psychology and Physiology from the University of Oxford and subsequently completed a PhD at the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. Trevor Robbins. Her research focused on exploring the neural and neurochemical basis of different forms of impulsivity. As a post-doctoral researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Eric Nestler at UT Southwestern, she investigated whether manipulating intracellular signalling pathways can affect impulse control and cognitive function and applied such knowledge to models of drug addiction. In January 2007, Dr. Winstanley took up a tenure-track assistant professorship at the University of British Columbia where she has established the Laboratory of Molecular and Behavioural Neuroscience and engages in university lecturing. https://winstanleylab.psych.ubc.ca/people/ Her current research interests focus on exploring the basis of cognitive function and impulse control at a neural, neurochemical and molecular level using rodent analogues of human neuropsychological tests; emphasis on frontostriatal systems, goal-directed behaviour, serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline. https://winstanleylab.psych.ubc.ca/ Her latest publication in EJN is titled “Cocaine self-administration is increased after frontal traumatic brain injury and associated with neuroinflammation”, (Vonder Haar et al., 2018), https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.14123. I spoke with Dr. Winstanley in October 2018, while she was in transit between Vancouver and Philadelphia. C. Winstanley: When I was a teenager, I became fascinated by the way in which psychoactive drugs could alter your brain and how your mind works and I thought that would be a really fun thing to study. I actually started off reading biochemistry at Oxford because I wanted to do pharmacology, but it wasn't offered as a stand-alone major. I then found out about the wonders of psychology, through which you could study pharmacology as early as your second year. So I did psychology and physiology, which was the closest you could get to a neuroscience degree at Oxford. Aside from that, one of my close friends was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. I remember feeling the frustration that there was so little that could be done to help him and how poorly his psychiatrist seemed to understand the condition; I wished there was something better that could be done. I guess that really fired my desire to study the brain, to study neuroscience and contribute in whatever way I could to discover better treatments for mental illness. That was back in 1996–I think we definitely know more now and I think there is hope that better treatments are coming as our understanding of psychopharmacology and molecular neurobiology improve. Of course it's quite disheartening that so many pharmaceutical companies are getting out of developing psychiatric drugs. I think academic leadership and advocacy on the behalf those who are suffering from mental health problems will be essential to ensure their needs are represented in science and industry. Furthermore, the realization that the brain is an organ of the body, as much as it is an organ of the mind, has been a bit of a paradigm shift; treating the brain as if it is completely independent from influences that impact the rest of our bodies is unlikely to yield the best outcome possible. This could result in some new strategies and interventions to optimize mental health and well-being that we just weren't considering before. I'm lucky enough to be working on all kinds of interesting things. I think having multiple projects on the go is important for keeping the lab vibrant and interesting. One of the things we're working on and that I'm really excited about, is trying to understand the interplay between poor decision-making and addiction risk, particularly with regards to gambling-like decision-making. We've been looking at how pairing wins with lights and sounds in gambling games, both in rats and humans, encourages risky decision-making that, in the end, results in worse outcomes for the subject. We thought that all the bells and whistles that you hear in gambling products were there just to maintain attention or draw you in, keep you engaged in the game. What we didn't expect was that they could actually affect the way in which you process the content of the game and that they may be also promoting poor choices. Of course, many of us are now glued to our phones 24/7 and all of our apps have sounds and lights and interactive displays. Our findings make me wonder, clinically, whether there's more to it that than just flagging our attention; maybe some of those sound and light cues are also designed to promote addictive behaviour or facilitate the making of decisions that are against our best interests. We don't yet quite understand what cognitive mechanisms these sensory stimuli are working through. We originally thought they might be just amplifying the sensations of reward or positive outcome. So far the data we're collecting indicates that they may be distorting the way in which we process the probability of something negative happening–tricking our brain into using quick and dirty heuristics rather than building a proper model of the rules of the game. We're doing everything we can to understand more about that right now. We are teaming up with folks who have expertise that we don't have, such as computational modelling and more sophisticated statistical analysis. It is a really exciting time and it's fun to do research that's highly translational. We're primarily a preclinical behavioural neuroscience lab, but working with human subjects has been really eye-opening. It's very exciting to see your findings start to translate that way. I think it's going to continue to innovate. It's an exciting time to be a behavioural neuroscientist. We have access now to tools and techniques that we wouldn't have dreamed possible when I started–things like optogenetics and chemogenetics. Also, we've got to be careful we don't lose sight of the importance of good behavioural models of cognition that translate between species. It's great that we can do single cell RNAseq (sequencing of RNA in a single cell) but we've got to make sure that we are using these powerful techniques to answer important and translationally relevant questions. For me, it always comes down to: what's the function of this set of neurons, or this brain area and how does it influence the complex cognitive processes that we know are disturbed in psychiatric conditions? It can be tough to work on behavioural assays of higher-order cognitive processes because it takes a long time to train the animals and you need students who are capable of putting in the hours and taking care of the rats diligently, but the pay-off can be enormous. I see that as one of the opportunities but also one of the great challenges in neuroscience–to remember the importance of psychology, what we've learned through thinking deeply about cognition and the brain and then to interface that with other amazing advances from molecular biology. We want to make sure we don't lose sight of what our ultimate goal is–my ultimate goal is to better understand the brain to enable improved treatments for psychiatric illness. You can't do that by just studying single cells in a dish, even though those discoveries can be highly informative. The two branches of neuroscience need to interface to maximize the potential of both approaches. I'm happy to discuss that. I was very fortunate in my academic upbringing. People might think, because I was at quite traditional institutions for my undergraduate and graduate training, that I may have come up against more chauvinism than you might expect at more modern places. But actually I didn't find any of that. I had the most superb mentors and I only ever felt that the merit of my science is what was going to drive me forward or hold me back. I think it's actually more difficult once you make it to the higher levels; we know that women tend to get less grant funding. When we do succeed, the amounts that we're awarded tend to be lower. We almost feel like we have to outperform men in order to get the same amount of recognition. I do detect some of that still in the field. On the plus side, I think there's never been greater awareness of the need for equality, inclusivity and diversity. I would say to any young female aspiring scientist: don't give up, don't be put off by some of the negative press that you've read. I have two small children and I'm delighted to be a mother. I've been given very good advice by other senior female scientists, including Marie-Francoise Chesselet when she came to UBC to give a talk years ago. She said: don't be shy about saying that you've got a family. At the time, I (C.W.) felt that you shouldn't talk about anything that you do outside of work because there was still this stereotype in the field – the scientist should sacrifice all in the name of their work and if you're not seen to be completely devoted, people aren't going to take you seriously. Dr. Chesselet said that's a really negative image to propagate. I know women want to be able to be successful human beings as well as successful scientists and I'm sure men want that too. Part of that is to have a vibrant life outside of science. I'm happy to say that I have a wonderful husband who supports and helps me. He's an absolute 50/50 partner in all that we do. Both of our careers took a hit when we had kids, both of us benefit from the joy of having a family. It is possible to do both. There are some really positive role models, both men and women at the top, who are speaking openly about this. We have to make academia work for everyone, not just workaholics content to remain isolated in their ivory towers. It has to evolve, just like every industry has had to change, to recognize the value that a diverse and committed workforce can bring. I think academia is changing, but we've got a long way to go. I hope there'll come a time when we no longer read self-congratulatory pieces in the top journals about those who sacrificed their families and their friends so that they could make the latest discovery. I'm glad they made the discovery, but that's not, in my mind, an unmitigated success. The editors of these journals are not going to come to your funeral. They're not going to be there for you through the highs and lows. There's more to everyone's life than just what they accomplish at work. By engaging in other activities, we allow those sides of ourselves to develop and that in turn may help us be more creative, insightful and empathetic to others in our community. I think those things can only make us better scientists, as well as better human beings. If we are going to really solve the problems of the brain and of mental illness, we need the best minds in every generation. They're not going to commit to this job if they have to sacrifice everything else–and they shouldn't be asked or expected to. I have great hope that there will be more inclusivity, diversity and equity in the future. It should be a win-win for all concerned. I think everyone is heavily influenced by their Ph.D supervisor. That was certainly true for me. I have an enormous amount of love and respect for Dr. Trevor Robbins. He was a fabulous mentor to me. I felt very supported and encouraged to try different things–to think creatively–while he also made sure I had projects going that he was confident would lead to a publishable outcome. That's been something that I've tried to take forward into my lab–that combination of blue-sky dreamer projects while also remaining grounded in incremental advances. Trevor also always had that translational link to his work. Whenever I hear him talk, I'm always reminded of the importance of trying to relate data across species, as that's where you can really see critical connections and patterns. Dr. Eric Nestler, my post-doctoral mentor, is also an absolute superstar and phenomenal scientist. He was also inspirational in that he was an incredibly supportive, incredibly nice guy, who allowed his post-docs to really find what inspired them. It's as if he gave you enough rope to hang yourself, but you knew there was a safety net under you. His confidence and faith in me when, to be honest, I didn't really have that much in myself was pretty life-changing. I don't think I'd be where I am today without either of those people supporting me. I also really need to thank my family. I was very lucky to have very supportive parents who never pushed me to do any one thing. They were, to be honest, a little horrified when I first told them I was switching majors from biochemistry to psychology. I think my dad offered the immortal line: ‘what on earth are you going to do with that?’ But, they let me make my own decisions and they trusted me enough to make my own mistakes. I feel like the lab is a doorway I've created and the people who work with me get to walk through that door, but they have to make the most of that journey with all the support that I can give them. Mentoring trainees is definitely the most enjoyable part of my job–sitting down with bright young minds, thinking about science, being inspired by them, hearing their ideas. They can make leaps and we can find new ways of thinking about a topic, that either of us by ourselves probably wouldn't have come up with. Getting excited about research and feeling that synergy, that's what makes me keen to get to work every morning. Unfortunately, that's not all of my job. My primary responsibility is to, as I say, make it rain. I've got to get the money in. That's one thing they can't do by themselves. That's one of the more stressful parts of my job–funding is harder and harder to come by. The actual process of writing grants is actually quite fun. Being forced into formulating your hypotheses and telling a good story about what you're going to do really focuses the mind. It can be a positive exercise. With the hit rate being so low right now, it sometimes feels like you're wasting your time, but you just have to be really persistent and not give up. I also do a lot of teaching. I used to find that incredibly challenging, but over the years I've become much better at it. That would be my advice for new students coming into this: if you do take a job that has a big teaching component, don't be put off by that. Even if the first couple of years are a struggle, it gets easier over time and you start to really enjoy it. You can be teaching that same information for 10 years and then you get a student question that suddenly changes the way you've been thinking about a paper; they're seeing it with fresh eyes and their insight may inspire a new research study on the topic. I think that to be a good researcher, it really helps to do at least some teaching because it keeps you connected with the literature. Sometimes when teaching folks who have very little neuroscience background, it forces you to dig back into those original papers and get to grips with some of those early discoveries so you can explain why the field followed a certain path and that really grounds your own knowledge and understanding. The hard bit is feeling like you don't have enough time to do it properly and I'm sure the sentiment is echoed by every scientist you speak to. The worst part of the job is the administration. There's lots of filing and paperwork and meetings that I don't think anyone regards as that thrilling. However, service to the University and to your community is another big part of being a faculty member and an advocate. It's important for higher-up members of your institution to realize the value of neuroscience research. You advocate on behalf of the undergraduate and graduate students to ensure that they have resources and are well supported going forward. I feel very lucky at UBC that I have some great leaders in my institution who clearly see the importance of what we do. I'm hopeful that UBC neuroscience is going to go from strength to strength in the coming years. Travel is also a big part of the neuroscience field. Something I never realized as a student is exactly how much of the world I'd get to see through this job. It's harder when you have a family, but it's so important to be able to meet with people face to face, to disseminate and highlight all the amazing discoveries your trainees are making. Even though it can be tough to find the time, I do try and say yes to as many conferences and speaker opportunities as I can. Maybe too many, hence the fact I'm doing this interview while at Pearson Airport. The most difficult part of being a faculty member is the first few years in the job, when the learning curve feels impossibly exponential. You've been trained to be a scientist and suddenly when you've got your own lab, you have to wear all these other hats: your managerial hat, budget-writing hat, teaching hat, administration hat etc.; you can feel horribly unprepared for that transition. I was given two important pieces of advice that helped me through that time. The first was that 90% of this game is persistence. Lots of people have said that to me and it's true. You may feel like you're never going to get there. The only way that you definitely won't get there is if you give up. You're going to get knocked back–take some time to shake it off and be kind to yourself, then get back at it. Eventually, if you believe in it, with a bit of luck you will succeed. The other piece of advice and it sounds very cheesy, like something right out of a motivational poster that you see on people's walls, is ‘imagine what you would do today if you knew you could not fail’. I think that made me realize that so many of my hesitations about starting certain experiments were grounded in fear of failure. Once I resigned myself to the risk and threw that out the window, I suddenly realized that I was capable of a lot more than I thought. Don't let that fear of failure rule the day. Take a chance. There's a reason why you got the job. You've got the ability so trust in yourself and jump. I love reading. I don't feel complete unless I have a book on the go. I read all kinds of fiction, although at the moment, I'm actually reading Macroeconomics for Dummies–makes me sound like a gigantic nerd. I'm actually really enjoying learning about economic theory. It's helping me understand some of the political shenanigans that are happening right now. I'm also dipping into Rupi Kaur's poetry book ‘the sun and all her flowers’. Her poems are simple, beautiful and unpretentious. I feel they encourage the validation and acceptance of our feelings–both positive and negative–in a life-affirming and hopeful way. I also listen to music a lot. I have a treadmill desk and find I focus better when I'm listening to music and walking on it; it seems to keep me engaged. I rediscovered my love of electronic music a couple of years ago, particularly trance in all its forms. I can't get enough of Solarstone's Pure Trance 7 compilation right now. It's my happy place! There have been so many. I'm spoiled for choice here. One of my favourites was definitely Istanbul. I was there for ECNP (European College of Neuropsychopharmacology) in 2009. It's a fabulous city where you get to see buildings of an age that boggled my mind. Even growing up in England, where you're surrounded by history, seeing buildings that date back to 500 A.D. and the intersection of Christianity and Islam and all the beautiful architecture from that, was really striking and something I'd never really seen before. I'm very fortunate to have just come back from China, which is somewhere I've long wanted to visit. I was in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. That was a really enjoyable trip and the people I met there were just fantastic. Find your passion. Find what you're passionate about and the rest will follow. You can live almost anywhere for a little while. If there's someone you really want to work with, then don't be put off by wherever their institution is. I didn't particularly want to live in Dallas, Texas, but that's where Eric's lab was when I did my post-doctoral training with him. I lived there for nearly three years, made some life-long friends and had an amazing time. Don't look for where early on in your career. Look for who. When you transition to faculty, you can think a bit more about places you'd want to live long-term, but as a post-doc, you can live almost anywhere–so go experience something new and different and you never know what you might find. My dad also gave me some great advice that might be useful for other people reading this–you are going to make mistakes; there's going to be things that you don't get right. Don't worry about that. You will find a way through them and you'll find a way to fix it. Shake them off and tomorrow is another day.