Dr. Jesse M. Lacasse is a postdoctoral fellow in Liisa Galea’s lab at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. His work investigates how hormonal contraceptive use may influence vulnerability to major depressive disorder, with a particular focus on identifying who is most at risk and the mechanisms that underlie this risk. His research program integrates behavioral neuroendocrinology with biomarker-driven approaches, leveraging a validated rodent model to test how moderators such as age of onset and stress shape outcomes.

He earned his PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from Concordia University in Wayne Brake’s lab, where he validated a hormonal contraceptive model in female rats and conducted translational research on hippocampus-mediated spatial memory in both female rats and women. Following his PhD, Dr. Lacasse completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship under the co-supervision of Liisa Galea and Cheryl McCormick at Brock University. During this period, he led projects examining how hormonal contraceptives affect adolescent and adult rats across multiple domains, including behavior, neuroinflammation, network functional connectivity, and energy metabolism.

He also served as a guest editor for a special issue in Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology focused on hormonal contraceptives and the brain. Dr. Lacasse was selected as a Brain Canada Rising Star (2023) and received the New Investigator Award from the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology (2024).