Heather Bimonte-Nelson is a President's Professor in the Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology program in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. For more than two decades, Bimonte-Nelson has conducted preclinical evaluations of multiple domains of cognitive function as related to aging, with a special focus on transitional and surgical menopause, and exogenous and endogenous hormone exposures across the lifespan. She has published more than 100 peer reviewed manuscripts evaluating hormone effects on the brain and behavior from early development until old age, with her earlier work showing that female brain organization is actively feminized by estrogens, and that estrogen exposures across the lifespan impact the female phenotype. She has expertise in behavioral measurements and related neurobiological assays, especially as associated with aging and hormone milieu. She recently edited a book on rodent behavioral testing entitled, “The Maze Book: Theories, Practice, and Protocols for Testing Rodent Cognition.”
Education
Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, under Dr. Lotta Granholm, 2000-2001
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Medical University of South Carolina, Physiology and Neuroscience, and the Center on Aging, under Dr. Lotta Granholm, 2001-2004
Ph.D. University of Connecticut, under Dr. Victor Denenberg, 2000
The overarching research goal of the Bimonte-Nelson laboratory is to optimize the trajectory of brain and cognitive changes as aging ensues with a translational eye to women’s health, taking a systems and interdisciplinary approach to elucidate the factors driving menopause- and hormone- related impacts. The Bimonte-Nelson laboratory has identified key variables that influence normal aging, and showing that factors such as menopause etiology, endogenous hormone changes associated with ovarian follicular depletion and ovariectomy, and exogenous hormone exposures can alter cognition. Their research includes testing contraceptive and hormone therapy hormones approved for use in women to determine effects on the brain and cognition during aging, to identify potential parameters of efficacy, and to address novel alternatives. They are steadfast toward the goal of discovering pathways to inform healthy brain aging. They attempt to do so by determining key variants in neurocognitive changes with a lifetime of endogenous and exogenous hormone exposures, and by performing rodent studies with a keen eye toward clinical translation. Their interests also incorporate these goals with relevance to Alzheimer's disease-related variables. In addition, one of their long-term goals is to apply these research questions to humans.
Research Projects
Hormone therapy effects on cognition and the brain as aging ensues, including interactions with menopause etiology
How reproductive senescence influences age-related changes in learning and memory
Dietary and experiential factors that alter age-related learning, memory, and neural changes, including interactions with sex and hormone milieu
Alzheimer's disease cognitive and pathology profiles as associated with behavioral neuroendocrinology factors
