Research Interests:

My current area of research, carried out in collaboration with Prof. Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University, New York, is to determine the correlation between the metabolism of steroid hormones in different areas of the rat brain and their physiological action.

Specifically, we have studied the regulation of corticosterone metabolism in the brain and peripheral tissues of the rat with respect to its role in stress and hypertension. We have also determined the fate of this steroid hormone after injection directly into brain regions of the intact animal. The conversion of dehydroepiandrosterone to androgen, estrogen and other products in hippocampal cells is also being investigated in view of the dramatic fall of this steroid with age in humans and its neuroprotective properties.