معرفی
Nicole Gervais, PhD is an Assistant Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Groningen's Faculty of Science and Engineering. She is affiliated with the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES) and the Faculty of Medical Sciences/UMCG's Cognition, Ageing and Disease (CAD) research group. Dr. Gervais leads the Memory, Sleep, and Hormones (MeSH) lab, which focuses on translational research examining how sex differences and hormonal changes affect brain health.
Dr. Gervais earned her PhD in Psychology/Behavioural Neuroscience from Concordia University in Montréal, Québec. She completed postdoctoral training at institutions in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA and Toronto, Canada. Before joining the University of Groningen in September 2023, she held a Research Associate position at the Rotman Research Institute and University of Western Ontario in London, Canada.
Her research program explores diversity in vulnerability to neuropsychiatric conditions and responses to therapeutics, with particular focus on how individual factors (especially sex) and environmental conditions contribute to neuropsychiatric disease and treatment effectiveness. She investigates sleep-wake patterns, social interactions, and cognition across species to understand how hormonal transitions like menopause affect brain health. Her work has significant implications for understanding why certain neurological and psychiatric conditions disproportionately affect women.
Dr. Gervais's publications reveal a strong focus on the intersection of sex differences, sleep physiology, and cognitive function. Her recent work examines how early ovarian removal affects hippocampal function, memory, and sleep architecture. She employs both human studies and rodent models to investigate these questions, using techniques including neuroimaging (MRI), sleep physiology measurements, behavioral assessments, hormone quantification, and pharmacological manipulations.
- Rosalind Franklin Fellowship
Dr. Gervais serves as an editor for special issues of the journal Hormones and Behavior. Her research has received significant attention, with multiple publications covered in international media outlets. Her work contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those related to good health and well-being. She has published over 27 research outputs including articles, preprints, editorials, and review articles, with many receiving substantial citations and media coverage.
Dr. Gervais directs the Memory, Sleep, and Hormones (MeSH) lab, which takes a translational approach to studying how major hormone changes interact with genes to increase vulnerability for developing insomnia and its adverse consequences for the aging female brain. The lab uses complementary research in rodents and humans, employing touchscreen tasks with high translational value to assess cognitive function in rodents and EEG recordings to assess sleep. Their research has important implications for understanding and treating conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as insomnia and Alzheimer's disease.
