Mission

<aside> ❤️‍🔥 The CLEAR (CLarifying the Endocrinology of Acute Risk) Lab seeks to reduce suffering in those with ovarian hormone-related emotional, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms, particularly across the menstrual cycle, through impactful scientific research, specialized scientific training, and global efforts to improve clinical care.

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• Scientific Mission: We use a combination of mechanistic clinical trials and longitudinal cohort studies to understand (and attempt to reverse) various transdiagnostic causes of psychiatric hormone sensitivity, including (1) specific internal and external hormonal triggers, (2) biological or psychosocial differences that explain abnormal sensitivity to triggers, (3) cognitive and behavioral processes that may maintain or exacerbate symptoms.
• Training Mission: We train emerging clinical scientists to conduct work with the potential to improve the lives of patients with cycle-related affective, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms through mastery of the reproductive psychiatry literature, development of experimental and longitudinal models, and flexible application of the best data analytic tools from quantitative psychology and computational psychiatry.
• Clinical/Advocacy Mission: We partner with patient/caregiver advocates, leading scientists, and clinical experts to promote lay audience awareness and clinician expertise in the evidence-based diagnosis and management of premenstrual disorders. This manifests in various ways, including the publication of expert clinical guidelines, content review for our nonprofit partners (www.iapmd.org), and advocating for inclusion of premenstrual disorders in clinical training programs.

Vision

We envision a world in which cyclical behavioral changes...

• are appropriately pathologized (some people have impairing symptoms) and contextualized (most people don’t)
• are clearly understood in terms of biological and behavioral causes,
• are accurately diagnosed as early as possible by a wide variety of healthcare professionals, and
• are treated by a wide variety of accessible health care professionals using affordable, evidence-based treatments.

Core Values

<aside> 🔥 Passion - actively seek out activities, topics, and collaborators who bring a sense of passion, energy, and excitement.

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“No one changes the world who isn’t obsessed.” - Billie Jean King

<aside> 🤨 Skepticism/Empiricism - develop skepticism; ask for objective evidence for any idea. Know how much your mind wants to fool you into believing ideas that you like, ideas that comfort you, or ideas that you came up with.

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“Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” - Richard Feynman

<aside> 👉 Experimentalism – Because correlation does not equal causation, use experimental methods to test ideas about the world whenever possible.

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"Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life… it is based on fact, experience and experiment." - Rosalind Franklin

<aside> 🙆 Confidence – Acknowledge and communicate our capabilities and strengths frequently.

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“Power’s not given to you. You have to take it.” - Beyoncé Knowles Carter