Dr. Chris Thompson (SMCM) Neuroscience Seminar on March 27, 2026

Dr. Christopher Thompson, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology at St. Mary's College of Maryland, be speaking on "Hormonal or not hormonal: Triclosan likely affects thyroid hormone dependent mechanisms of brain development via non-endocrine mechanisms."

Talk abstract: Triclosan is an antimicrobial agent once widely used in a wide range of consumer health products. Some studies have indicated that it may be an endocrine disruptor for thyroid hormone, which would mean that it could potentially impair the developing brain. To test the degree to which triclosan affects brain development, we ran a series of experiments using African clawed frog tadpoles as an animal model. We found that triclosan does impair thyroid-hormone dependent changes in brain development, but that it likely does so not through canonical endocrine disruption mechanisms but instead seems to impair mitochondrial function.