Elizabeth Adkins-Regan

Elizabeth Adkins-Regan (née Kocher; born July 1945) is an American comparative behavioral neuroendocrinologist best known for her research on the hormonal and neural mechanisms of reproductive behavior and sexual differentiation in birds. She is currently a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University.

Education and career Adkins-Regan received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1967.

After receiving her graduate degree, she was an assistant professor at Bucknell University from 1972 to 1974 and then at the State University of New York College at Cortland from 1974 to 1975. She became a full professor in the Department of Psychology and Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University in 1988. a major synthesis of the study of animal social behavior and steroid and peptide hormones. She served as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Hormones and Behavior from 2008 to 2011 and was the President of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology from 2015 to 2017. She also demonstrated that treatment of male Japanese quail embryos with estrogens de-masculinizes behavior, resulting in adult males that fail to show male-typical courtship behavior even when later treated with testosterone. These experimental findings suggested a model of sexual differentiation for birds in which the steroid hormone estradiol secreted by the heterogametic sex (in this case, females) is responsible for the process of differentiation. Thus, the absence of male-type sexual behavior in adult females would result from their early exposure to endogenous estrogens, a process that would be experimentally reproduced in males by the injection of exogenous estradiol.

In the 1980s her research program expanded to include research in both Japanese quail and zebra finches. In the socially-monogamous zebra finches, she performed a series of parallel experiments demonstrating the effects of steroid hormones on the development sexually differentiated behaviors in these songbirds.

Adkins-Regan's later research focused on the hormonal and neural mechanisms of a broader range of reproductive and social behaviors in birds, including courtship, mate choice, pair formation, mating behavior, parental behavior and aggression. She also published research in 2016 demonstrating that King quail, a closely related species to the Japanese quail, form monogamous pair bonds.

Hormones and Animal Social Behavior On 7 August 2005, she published Hormones and Animal Social Behavior.

Personal life Adkins-Regan has been married to the Cornell University social psychologist Dennis T. Regan since 1980.

Awards and recognitions Daniel S. Lehrman Lifetime Achievement Award in Behavioral Neuroendocrinology, Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology, 2019 Exemplar Award, Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior, Indiana University, 2017 Howard Bern Award, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), 2016 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), elected 1984 Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, elected 1998 Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society, elected 1991 American Fulbright Research Scholar Award, 1986-1987 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, 1967-1971

Notable publications Adkins, E. K., & Adler, N. T. (1972). Hormonal control of behavior in the Japanese quail. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 81(1), 27–36. doi:10.1037/h0033315 Adkins, E. K. (1975). Hormonal basis of sexual differentiation in the Japanese quail. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 89(1), 61–71. doi:10.1037/h0076406 Adkins, E. K. (1976). Embryonic exposure to an antiestrogen masculinizes behavior of female quail. Physiology & Behavior, 17(2), 357–359. doi: 10.1016/0031-9384(76)90088-3 Adkins, E. K., & Pniewski, E. E. (1978). Control of reproductive behavior by sex steroids in male quail. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 92(6), 1169–1178. doi:10.1037/h0077523 Adkins, E. K. (1979). Effect of Embryonic Treatment with Estradiol or Testosterone on Sexual Differentiation of the Quail Brain. Critical Period and Dose-Response Relationships. Neuroendocrinology, 29(3), 178–185. doi:10.1159/000122920 Adkins-Regan, E., Abdelnabi, M., Mobarak, M., Ottinger, M. A. (1990). Sex steroid levels in developing and adult male and female zebra finches (Poephila guttata). Gen. Comp. Endocrinol. 78(1), 93-109. doi:10.1016/0016-6480(90)90051-m. Adkins-Regan, E. (2005). Hormones and Animal Social Behavior. Princeton University Press.