Caroline A Browne

Caroline A Browne, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Molecular Therapeutics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). Her research focuses on stress neurobiology, drug development for psychiatric disorders, and opioid receptor signaling in depression. She holds a B.Sc. in Neuroscience from University College Cork (2006) and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology (2012), followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania (2016).

Her work spans preclinical studies on antidepressant mechanisms, with a focus on ketamine, buprenorphine, and kappa opioid receptor antagonists. Key contributions include elucidating stress-induced immune changes in the hippocampus and developing dietary methods for tryptophan depletion studies. She has received awards such as the ECNP Travel Award (2008-2009) and Penn Center for Innovation Fellowship (2015).

• Roles: Organized the Neuropharmacology Drug Club (2016-present) and serves on the USUHS Rat Behavioral Core and Mouse Preclinical Core advisory committees.
• Editorial: Guest associate editor for Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience (2019-present) and topic editor for the same journal (2020-present).

Her research integrates translational approaches to understand depression pathophysiology, with a focus on opioid dysregulation and lateral habenula circuitry. Recent work highlights ketamine’s effects in maternal deprivation models and kappa receptor antagonists for stress-related disorders.