UA News

Robert J. Handa and his research team are looking at the effects of hormones on the response to stressful situations.

A husband wants to punch a hole in the wall while his wife wants to talk about the latest misdoings of their children, the downturn in the economy or a similar stressful event.

Why is the reaction so different? Dr. Robert J. Handa, and his research team are seeking the answers.

Handa, professor in the basic medical sciences department and one of the new researchers at The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University, is studying hormone effects on stress responses, notably the differences between the sexes.

"What we really are interested in is how steroid hormones can affect brain function," Handa said. "So the major focus in the lab is to see how testosterone and estrogen might regulate responsiveness to stress."

Handa, who arrived this summer with his team of researchers from Colorado State University, is looking at the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which steroid hormones can influence neuronal function and behavior.

"So what we have been able to show is that if you just look at the hormonal responses to stress, females respond more robustly than males, but behaviorally males respond more than females. This represents differences in coping strategies between the sexes," Handa said.

Handa's research has proposed that opposing actions of testosterone and estrogen lead to the different hormonal stress responses in adults. The research on the mechanisms at work here are the major focus of his lab.

"Underlying all this is an interest in depression and anxiety because the incidence of depression is more than two times greater in women than men and for anxiety the difference is ever greater," he said.

He comes to the UA with several R01 grants – the original National Institutes of Health grant. Handa recently was asked to lead the U.S.-Japan International Symposium on Steroid Hormone Receptors and Neural Sex Differences, which was held over four days in Gifu, Japan.

Handa comes from a background in animal study, earning a bachelor's degree in zoology from Long Beach State University, a master's in animal physiology at the UA and a doctorate in anatomy from UCLA. Handa also worked in Oregon and later in Chicago, teaching at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University of Chicago. 

He spent 11 years in Chicago before joining the faculty at Colorado State in 1998 as a professor in neurobiology and anatomy. He eventually was named interim director of the molecular, cellular, integrative neuroscience graduate program at CSU.

He currently has several grants, including the three NIH grants noted above, covering gender differences in stress research and another on fetal alcohol exposure.

"Without a doubt, Dr. Handa is a superstar in the research community and we are extremely lucky to have him on this campus," College of Medicine – Phoenix Interim Dean Dr. Stuart Flynn, said. "He and his team raise the bar on the kind of research we are doing here and will go a long way in helping many people, as well as help train the best physicians for Arizona."

Handa is teaching anatomy to first-year students at the College of Medicine – Phoenix. The first class of 24 four-year medical students began classes in August 2007 and a new class of 48 first-year students began classes in July.