Researcher Profile: Dr Tara Perrot
Dr. Tara Perrot, Professor with the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Dalhousie University has been a proud member of the Brain Repair Centre (BRC) since 2002.
“Working with the BRC brings a real prestige,” says Dr. Perrot. “When I mention it to other researchers, they tend to know the BRC and many of its collaborators. It’s very appealing to be part of such a respected organization with a great reputation.”
Dr. Perrot studies the development of the stress response, with two current areas of focus. At an individual level, we all release the same hormones under stress but what causes us to become stressed may vary. Our stress response is a very important capability, but if we depend upon it too frequently, it can lead to potential physical and mental disorders. Dr. Perrot studies the variability in our responses to stress and how that can feed a pre-disposition for some of these disorders.
The Perrot lab also studies what impacts the development of our stress response. The team works mostly with rats to understand the effects of various impacts, including stress in the father prior to conception, prenatal stress and the care that a mother provides to her young. For instance, they have found that when a mother is more actively engaged in maternal behaviour, it tends to lead to more positive stress responses in her offspring.
“In our research, we always look at both males and female subjects. It is very different today than in the past when only males were studied,” says Dr. Perrot. “We now have granting agencies pushing people to justify why they aren’t evaluating females. It’s taken a long time to get here. Evaluating both males and females doubles the cost and time for experiments, but I feel it’s really important to get comprehensive results.”
Dr. Perrot credits her grad students as critical to her lab’s success. “All of my students have their unique skills and abilities. Lisa Wright was instrumental in getting the lab up and running, and Libby Myles and Elizabeth O’Leary have really been running it over the last few years. I can’t say enough great things about them.”
The lab has also benefitted from great support and collaborations. “I was very proud to hold NSERC Discovery Grant funding from 2002 until 2019,” says Perrot. “They have really been wonderful to work with. Our present collaboration with Mitacs has also been an incredible experience.”
Dr. Perrot’s collaborations include work with former graduate student, Austin Korgan, now at Jax Labs in the US and, locally, with Ian Weaver and others in her department. “We also enjoy working with our industrial partner, the Roselle Institute of Lallemand in Montreal,” she says. “Thomas Tompkins leads a great group there. And we have also benefitted from Engage Grants through the NSERC industrial partnership programs.
“Right now, we are continuing the collaboration with Lallemand to study the effects of probiotics given to offspring early in life via the mother, and whether it can change the impacts of a western diet,” says Dr. Perrot. “Another graduate student, Cory Munroe is also working with Heather Neyedli in the Faculty of Health to look at the effects of probiotics in humans, particularly varsity athletes and the effects of probiotics on their memory and response to stress. That’s a whole new thing for me!”
Dr. Perrot is excited to be part of the BRC as it continues to grow and flourish. “I have to give Vic Rafuse a shout out,” she says. “I have been part of the Executive Committee since he became director. He has done a tremendous job with the BRC and I’m happy to be part of it as we keep improving and move into the future.”
You can also read about some of Dr Perrot’s trainees- Libby Myles and Cory Monroe - at Our Trainees page.