Welcome to the Monks Lab Website
Our lab is an interdisciplinary environment where we investigate sex differences. Beyond their intrinsic interest, sex differences provide a means of understanding individual differences in the nervous system and behaviour. Biological sex provides arguably the best understood and most highly conserved individual difference. The developmental processes that bring about sex differences, or sexual differentiation, in mammals involves a complex interplay of genes, hormones and environmental factors. We study sexual differentiation in mice and rats, with an emphasis on hormonal regulation of neuromuscular systems (for more information about this line of research click here). We apply insights gained from these studies to health and disease. Notably, we are contributing to research on Kennedy Disease/Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy (for more information about this line of research click here), and mechanisms of anabolic androgenic steroid action.