Episode 101: Rachel Yehuda talks about epigenetic inheritance, PTSD and the potential of MDMA therapies

Today we talk with Dr. Rachel Yehuda whose pioneering research on cortisol and brain function has revolutionized worldwide our understanding and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Rachel is also well-known for her studies on the intergenerational transmission of trauma and PTSD. This novel research has shown that the children of traumatized parents are at risk of similar problems due to epigenetic changes that are transmitted from the parents to their offspring. She has worked with war veterans, Holocaust survivors and other victims of trauma to detail the biological roots of PTSD.

She is a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience and the director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. She also is the director of the Mental Health Patient Care Center at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center.

Show notes:

[00:02:31] Dawn begins the interview asking Rachel about her time as a child growing up in Cleveland.

[00:03:17] After Ken mentions that Rachel’s father was a rabbi, Rachel explains how growing up in an observant Jewish household shaped her.

[00:04:46] Rachel talks about a biology teacher who inspired her to go beyond her interests in philosophy and pursue science.

[00:05:50] Dawn asks Rachel why it seems that so many scientists start out with an interest in philosophy.

[00:07:16] Dawn asks Rachel why she decided to major in psychology at Touro University in New York.

[00:08:16] Ken asks Rachel why she decided to attend the University of Massachusetts at Amherst after graduating from Touro University.

[00:09:03] Rachel explains how she went into graduate school looking for a way to become both a psychologist and a scientist.

[00:10:08] Dawn asks Rachel about something Rachel’s daughter observed about her: “You move to the beat of your own drum. You never do anything other than what the voice in your head tells you to do.”

[00:11:12] Ken asks if it is true that Rachel’s first graduate advisor was not optimistic about Rachel making it through grad school.

[00:12:33] Rachel tells the story of how she first met Bill Edell and walked up to him and said that she wanted to do clinical research.

[00:14:38] Ken asks Rachel why she decided to do research on stress, particularly when stress wasn’t a major focus of research in the 1980s.

[00:16:05] Dawn mentions that after graduating from UMass Amherst, Rachel did her postdoctoral work in biological psychiatry at Yale Medical School. Rachel met Dr. Earl Giller there, who became Rachel’s mentor and an early researcher in post-traumatic stress disorder. Rachel talks about how Dr. Giller had just completed a study on Vietnam veterans showing low cortisol levels.

[00:18:40] Rachel talks about how for her post-doc at Yale she wanted to look into the biology of personality, but was told that it was a “dumb idea” for post-doc research.

[00:22:06] Dawn asks about the paradox uncovered by Dr. Giller’s research into Vietnam veterans showing low cortisol levels when stress is supposed to be associated with elevated cortisol levels. Dawn goes on to ask how this finding led Rachel to interview Holocaust survivors in her hometown of Cleveland.

[00:24:43] Rachel tells the story of when she talked to a group of Holocaust survivors, a woman came up to her and said: You know, Dr. Yehuda, we don’t have VA centers like your veterans do.

[00:26:20] Ken asks about the program Rachel set up to help Holocaust survivors.

[00:27:20] Dawn points out that in 2016 Rachel published the results of a study looking at the genes of 32 Jewish women and men. She and her colleagues at Mount Sinai studied Holocaust survivors who either had been interned in Nazi concentration camps during World War II or had witnessed or experienced torture. Rachel also looked at the genes of 22 children who were born to the Holocaust survivors after the war. Rachel discusses how the changes in the DNA of Holocaust ...