Dr. Adrienne Antonson is a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and an assistant professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She joined the UIUC faculty in January 2021.
Antonson's research is anchored within the fields of immunology, microbiology, and developmental and behavioral neuroscience. She uses translational animal models to investigate inflammatory and neurodevelopmental origins of behavioral abnormalities and mental health disorders. Focusing on the prenatal period as a critical developmental window, she has demonstrated that maternal insults such as viral infection and psychological stress during pregnancy alter neuroimmune signatures in the offspring brain, leading to disrupted behaviors.
Research interests:


Prenatal immune determinants of neurodevelopment and behavior


Research areas:


Molecular and cellular neuroscience


Neural & genomic bases of behavior


Neural bases of disease and disorders


Neural development


Education


Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH, 2021


Ph.D., Immunophysiology and Behavior Program, Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2018


NIH T32 postdoctoral fellowship, The Ohio State University Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, 2020