Thurston

While experiences of trauma are well known to impact mental health, emerging research also links them to women's physical health. Dr. Rebecca Thurston's SWAN study has revealed that both childhood and adult trauma exposure are associated with poorer cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health in women, pointing to the importance of trauma to the occurrence of menopausal symptoms, to cardiovascular health, and to women's brain health at midlife and beyond.
 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38280354/

Dr. Rebecca Thurston's research found that greater carotid intima media thickness (IMT) is associated with greater brain white matter hyperintensities (WMH) among older individuals, yet few studies consider these associations at midlife. Even fewer studies focus on women. The neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias accumulate at midlife. For women, midlife includes the menopause transition.

Read about Dr. Thurston's findings here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36722746/

Drs. Holly Thomas, Rebecca Thurston, and their team developed a virtual mindfulness intervention for midlife and older women with low libido and found that it is feasible, acceptable, and appears to improve sexual distress as compared with an education control; these findings provide data that can be used to design a larger clinical trial.

Read more about their findings here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37353906/

Trauma has been linked to risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and interpersonal violence is a trauma that is prevalent in women. Dr. Thurston and her team followed a group of midlife women for two decades to examine whether interpersonal violence (childhood abuse, adulthood abuse, or intimate partner violence [IPV]) was related to increased risk of subsequent clinical CVD events. Findings show that childhood abuse, particularly sexual abuse, was associated with increased risk of CVD. 

Scientific organizations, agencies, and institutions are essential for setting norms and policies toward a zero-tolerance culture of sexual harassment by advancing prevention and empowering people at risk for harassment, discrimination, and violence. Dr. Thurston and her team analyzed an activity held at an international scientific congress that advanced sexual harassment prevention and elimination and empower binary and nonbinary persons at risk for harassment, discrimination, and violence. 

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Faculty members Dr. Holly Thomas, Dr. Megan Hamm, Dr. Tamar Krishnamurti, Dr. Sonya Borrero, and Dr. Rebecca Thurston did a qualitative study of low libido in postmenopausal women. 

Faculty member Dr. Rebecca Thurston recently published on sexual assault and brain health in midlife women, referencing white matter hyperintensities and how they can serve as early markers for brain disorders, such as dementia and stroke.