Mar Sanchez, PhD

Mar Sanchez is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine and Affiliate Scientist in the Division of Developmental and Cognitive Neuroscience, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University.

Dr. Sanchez received her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain and has expertise in stress neurobiology and behavioral neuroscience. Her lab studies the neurobiology of stress and emotional regulation during development, using nonhuman primate models. The main focus of her research program is to understand how early life stress (in particular, alterations in maternal care) affects the development of brain circuits that control emotional and stress reactivity from infancy through adolescence, leading to psychopathology and pathophysiology characteristic of anxiety and mood disorders. These brain systems include prefrontal-amygdala circuits. She uses a multidisciplinary approach, including analysis of neuroendocrine stress systems, social and emotional behavior and brain development using in vivo neuroimaging techniques (MRI, DTI, PET and resting state fMRI) and in vitro assays of brain neuropeptide and corticosteroid systems. She has established a successful research program, supported by NIH and NSF funding and by awards from private foundations (e.g. NARSAD, ASF and KTGF). Current awards include R01 grants from NIH/NICHD and NIH/NIDA and is co-PI in a project part of the Emory Autism Center of Excellence. Dr. Sanchez’s multidisciplinary and translational research bridges different disciplines and strong collaborations with clinical and basic researchers that study human developmental psychobiology, psychopathology, behavioral genetics/epigenetics and psychoneuroimmunology at Emory and other universities (Minnesota, Madison-Wisconsin, Maryland, OHSU, Pittsburgh, NYU, UNC) and the NIH. She is a member of the NIH CSR Biobehavioral Regulation, Learning and Ethology (BRLE) Study Section and serves in the editorial board of several journals, including Psychoneuroendoendocrinology and Development and Psychopathology.