Email: susan_girdler@med.unc.edu

Phone: (919) 966-2544

Education:

B.S., Psychology, University of Florida
M.S., Counseling Psychology, Nova Southeastern University
Ph.D., Experimental & Biological Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Summary Statement:

Dr. Girdler is co-Director of the department’s NIH-funded fellowship program in Reproductive Mood Disorders as well as co-Director of the department’s Junior Faculty Mentoring Program.

Research Interests:

Dr. Girdler’s long standing research interest is in women’s health, including reproductive mood disorders.  Her research has focused on neuroendocrine and neurosteroid dysregulation in premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and the role of trauma in identifying a clinically distinct subgroup of women with PMDD.  Other research includes studies examining the cardiovascular and mood benefits of estrogen replacement in peri- and postmenopausal women.  Dr. Girdler’s research interests also include ethnic differences in endogenous pain regulation.

Representative Publications:

1.    Bunevicius A, Leserman J, Girdler S (2012).  Hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis function in women with a menstrually related mood disorder:  association with histories of sexual abuse.  Psychosomatic Medicine, in press

2.    Girdler SS, Lindgren M, Porcu P, Rubinow DR, Johnson JL, Morrow AL (2012).  A history of depression in women is associated with an altered GABAergic neuroactive steroid profile.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, 37:543-553.  PMID 21890277

3.    Mechlin B, Heymen S, Edwards CL, Girdler SS (2011).  Ethnic differences in cardiovascular-somatosensory interactions and in central processing of noxious stimuli.  Psychophysiology, 48(6):762-773.  PMID: 21039586

4.    Rubinow DR, Girdler SS (2011).  Hormones, heart disease, and health:  Individualized medicine versus throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  Depression and Anxiety, 28(6):E1–E15.  PMID:  21648024.

5.    Klatzkin RR, Lindgren ME, Forneris CA, Girdler SS (2010).  Histories of major depression and premenstrual dysphoric disorder:  Evidence for phenotypic differences.  Biological Psychology, 84(2):235-47.