Kathleen Casto

Graduate Areas: 

• Behavioral Neuroscience
• Social-Health

Does Dr. Casto plan to recruit a doctoral student for the next incoming class?

Research Interests:

As a behavioral neuroendocrinologist, I seek to uncover hormonal and neural mechanisms that influence social interactions, optimal performance, and health outcomes. One current focus of my research is on the influence of hormonal transitions (e.g., menstrual cycle fluctuations) and interventions (e.g., hormonal contraceptive use) on social-status behaviors, psycho-social stress, and mood disruption. A second area of focus is on testing steroid hormone correlates of attention, emotion, and reward-related patterns of cortical brain activation. My laboratory uses a variety of methods to test interdisciplinary research questions with human participants including hormonal assays, surveys, behavioral tasks, and most recently, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS, a neuroimaging technique).

Courses Frequently Taught:

• Psychobiology of Love and War

Publications:

Link to: Google Scholar Page

• Petersen, N., Beltz, A.M., Casto, K.V., Taylor, C.M., Jacobs, E.G., Sundström-Poromaa, I., & Pletzer, B. (2023). Towards a more comprehensive neuroscience of hormonal contraceptives. Nature Neuroscience, 1-3.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01273-z 
• Casto, K.V., Prasad, S., Josephs, R.A., Zilioli, S., Welker, K., Maslov, A., ... & Mehta, P. H. (2023). No compelling evidence that self-reported personality traits explain basal testosterone and cortisol’s associations with status-relevant behavior. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-023-00210-5
• Murphy, B.A., Casto, K.V., Watts, A.L., Costello, T.H., Jolink, T.A., Verona, E., & Algoe, S. (2022) “Feeling Powerful” versus “Desiring Power”: A pervasive and problematic conflation in personality assessment? Journal of Research in Personality, 101, 104305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2022.104305
• Casto, K.V., Jordan, T., & Petersen, N. (2022) Hormone-based models for comparing menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptive effects on human resting-state functional connectivity. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology Special Issue on Hormonal contraceptives and the brain: A call for translational research, 67, 101036. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yfrne.2022.101036   
• Stern, J., Hildebrand, T., & Casto, K.V. (2022). Women’s intrasexual competitiveness and jealousy across the ovulatory cycle – A hormone-based study. Social Psychological and Personality Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221117712
• Arthur, L.C., Casto, K.V., & Blake, K.R. (2022) Hormonal contraceptives as disruptors of competitive behavior: Theoretical framing and review. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 66, 101015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yfrne.2022.101015
• Casto, K.V. (2022). Tracking women’s reproductive data in sport: Practical limitations, perils and pitfalls. Sports Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01671-6
• Casto, K.V., Leininger, E.C., & Tan, T. (2022). Teaching about sex and gender in Neuroscience: More than meets the “XY”. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education. https://www.funjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/june-20-190.pdf?x36670
• Casto, K.V., Arthur, L.C., Hamilton, D., & Edwards, D.A. (2022) Testosterone, athletic context, oral contraceptive use, and competitive performance in women. In Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 8, 52–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40750-021-00180-6
•  Casto, K.V., Root, Z. L., Carré, J.M., Geniole, S., & Bruner, M.W. (2021). Exploratory analysis of the relationship between social identification and testosterone reactivity to vicarious combat. Human Nature, 32, 509-527. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-021-09407-7