38. Translational Conversations Ep. 4 - Love, Loss, and the Treatment of Prolonged Grief

This week on Translational Conversations, we talk with Dr. Zoe Donaldson, a prairie vole researcher, and Dr. Katherine Shear, a human researcher, about how their work has inspired and influenced each other’s research on attachment bonding, love and loss, and the development of Prolonged Grief Disorder. In this episode, Dr. Donaldson and Dr. Shear discuss the role of the brain’s reward system in grief, how grief differs from depression, the special bonding of prairie voles that makes them an ideal species for studying grief, and how their complementary research has inspired novel treatments for Prolonged Grief Disorder. Their discussion further explores the bidirectional process of translational research, how to consider the language we use when communicating findings from different species, and ways we can build better bonds between researchers to advance scientific progress. 

We thank Dr. Zoe Donaldson, the Larry Gold Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder and Dr. Katherine Shear, the Marion E. Kenworthy Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and the founding Director of the Center for Prolonged Grief at Columbia School of Social Work, for their openness and willingness in discussing their research with us for this podcast.

Translational Conversations is made possible through support from Biomedical Research Awareness Day, a program of Americans for Medical Progress and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Resources & Links: 

Craving Love? Enduring grief activates brain’s reward center by Mary-Frances O’Connor

Neurobiology and treatment advances for prolonged grief disorder by Donaldson and Shear

Prairie Voles as a model of adaptive reward remodeling following loss of a bonded partner by Sadino and Donaldson