Emily Jacobs

Professor

Research Area

Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience

Biography

Emily Jacobs is a Professor of Neuroscience at UC Santa Barbara and Director of the Ann S. Bowers Women's Brain Health Initiative. Her body of research is redefining our understanding of the brain’s capacity to undergo dynamic neuroanatomical changes and plasticity well into adulthood. In 2024 her team published the first detailed map of the human brain across pregnancy and she leads multi-center study of neurological changes across the transition to menopause. Prior to UCSB, she held a faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Medicine/Division of Women's Health at Brigham & Women's Hospital. She is a graduate of Smith College and UC Berkeley. Dr. Jacobs' serves on the Steering Committee of the Women’s Brain Health Coalition, the Milken Insitute’s Women’s Health Network, 51 Foundation, and the WHAM Research Collaborative to drive the national and international agenda on women’s health research. In recognition of her body of work, Dr. Jacobs was named a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “Health and Society” Scholar, a National Institutes of Health Women's Health Fellow, and a National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science Fellow for "distinguished young scientists under 45." Science News named her one of the “Top 10 Scientists” to watch around the globe. In addition to research, Dr. Jacobs and her team partner with K-12 groups to advance girls' representation in STEM. Her work is featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, NPR, BBC, TED, Netflix, and MasterClass.

Research

The brain is an endocrine organ and sex hormones' influence on the central nervous system can be measured across spatial and temporal scales. Powerful evidence from animal and human studies demonstrate that sex hormones regulate cell survival, plasticity, and global morphology of brain regions that support learning and memory. The Jacobs Lab explores the structural and functional changes in the brain that occur in response to changing hormonal conditions. We pair brain imaging tools with endocrine assessments to study how endogenous and exogenous hormonal factors (e.g. neuroendocrine aging during menopause, use of oral hormonal contraceptives) influence aspects of brain structure, function, and cognition in women and men.

Selected Publications

Pritschet L., Taylor C, Cossio D., Faskowitz J, Santander T., Handwerker D., +Grotzinger H., Layher E., Chrastil E., and Jacobs, E.G. (2024) Neuroanatomical changes observed over the course of a human pregnancy. Nature Neuroscience

Martinez-Garcia M., Jacobs, E.G., de Lange A., Carmona S. (2024) Advancingthe neuroscience of pregnancy. Nature Neuroscience

Jacobs E.G. (2023) Bridging the neuroscience gender divide. Nature

Jacobs E.G. (2023) Leveraging precision neuroimaging to advance women’s brain health. Nature Mental Health

Petersen N., Beltz A., Casto K., +Taylor C., Jacobs E.G., Sundstrom-Poromaa, Pletzer B., (2023) Toward a more comprehensive neuroscience of hormonal contraception. Nature Neuroscience

Wolcott NS, Redman WT, Karpinska M., Jacobs EG, Goard MJ. (*2025*) The estrous cycle modulates hippocampal spine dynamics and spatial coding. Neuron

Murata E, Pritschet L., Santander T., Grotzinger H., and Jacobs, E.G. (2024) Circadian and circalunar rhythms tied to changes in global brain morphology in a densely sampled male. The Journal of Neuroscience

Grotzinger H, Pritschet L., Shapturenka P., Santander T., Murata E., and Jacobs, E.G. (2024) Diurnal fluctuations in steroid hormones tied to variation in intrinsic functional connectivity in a densely sampled male. The Journal of Neuroscience

Pritschet L., Santander T., Taylor C., Layher E., +Yu S., Miller M.B., Grafton S.T., Jacobs E.G. (2020) Functional reorganization of brain networks across the human menstrual cycle. NeuroImage 220:117091

Taylor C., Pritschet L., Olsen R., Layher E., Santander T., Grafton S.T., Jacobs E.G. (2020) Progesterone shapes medial temporal lobe volume across the human menstrual cycle. NeuroImage 220:117125

Dhamala E, Galea L., Jacobs E.G., Ricard J., Uddin L., Yeo T., Holmes A. (2025) Considering the interconnected nature of social identities in psychiatric neuroimaging. Nature Neuroscience

Barth C., Galea L., Jacobs E.G., Lee B., Westlye T., de Lange A. (2024) Menopausal hormone therapy and the female brain: leveraging neuroimaging and prescription registry data from the UK Biobank cohort. eLife