I have had extensive experience examining the influence of neuroactive factors on the brain and behavior. I was formally trained (with Lyle Miller, John Knott and Sanford Cohen) as a neuropsychologist with specialization in electrophysiology. However, in parallel, I had the remarkable “extra” opportunity as a graduate student to participate in studies that would change the field of endocrinology. The laboratories of my mentors, Abba Kastin and Andrew Schally (Nobel Laureate) were in an international race to discover hypothalamic releasing hormones (Schally succeeded hence the Nobel Prize in 1977) and to describe the extra-endocrine effects of many peptide hormones. The training I received and the opportunity to collaborate with this group extended to my time at Ohio State University and eventually at the University of California, Irvine.

I have maintained an extramural, peer-reviewed, funded research program for over thirty-two consecutive years and have published over 350 scientific papers. During the past thirty years, I have been Principal Investigator for a consecutive series of NIH-supported studies that examined the "programming" effects of maternal signals on the human fetus, birth outcomes, infant and child development including grants to conduct imaging studies of the brain in 6-9 year-old children with extensive prenatal histories. The findings from our developmental projects include over 1000 mother/fetal/infant/child dyads and over 100 published research papers and have contributed to the growing acceptance that prenatal exposure to maternal signals has consequences for neurological development and is a risk factor for poor postnatal maternal and infant developmental outcomes.