We at EJN are proud to introduce Dr. Sophie Molholm, Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, as the next scientist for our series of Women in Neuroscience. We began this series to bring visibility and recognition to the superb women scientists working in our community (Helmreich et al., 2017); you can find all of the previous profiles here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1460-9568.women-in-science.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Molholm in July 2023. A memorable quote from our interview: ‘It maybe cliché to say, but you really have to celebrate the successes’.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DR. MOLHOLM'S BACKGROUND

Dr. Molholm ‘graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in psychology in 1989. She completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2002 with her dissertation: The Cortical Neurophysiology of Visual–Auditory Multisensory Processing in Humans, for which she was awarded the CUNY Outstanding Dissertation Award’ (Wikipedia, 2023).

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DR. MOLHOLM'S WORK

‘As a Cognitive Neuroscientist, my research centers around understanding the intricacies of the brain and its role in shaping our experiences of the world. My curiosity lies in the fundamental processes that govern how the human brain processes and integrates sensory inputs to influence perception and behavior. This includes studying mechanisms of attention, speech processing, and higher-order cognition related to executive function.

In addition to being PI of a lab, I co-direct the NICHD funded Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Research Center and a related T32 training program on intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Through these programs, my colleagues and I aim to provide a rich intellectual and multidisciplinary environment within which research is performed to better the lives of individuals affected by an IDD’. https://www.einsteinmed.edu/faculty/12028/sophie-molholm/ (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 2023).

The latest EJN publication from Dr. Molholm's research group is Cued motor processing in autism and typical development: A high-density electrical mapping study of response-locked neural activity in children and adolescents (Wakim et al., 2023). Dr. Molholm also serves as a Section Editor for EJN, in the cognitive neuroscience subject area.

EJN: ANYTHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD TO YOUR BACKGROUND?

S.M.:

I had a non-traditional early education experience—I grew up in two communities, and it sounds much weirder when I say it out loud than I think it actually was. I was born in London, lived there until I was about 5 years old, and then we moved back to the States where my parents were from. We lived out on Long Island, NY, and my mother and her partner got involved in a community out there called Lindisfarne.

This was an intellectual community, we lived in a cabin, there were a bunch of cabins—it must have been a resort at some point that was given to the founder of this community, William Irwin Thompson. My stepdad was very involved in organizing the community's conferences. We had fascinating people visit: Rusty Schweickart, an astronaut on Apollo 9; Francisco Varela, a very well-known cognitive neuroscientist; Gregory Bateson, a Polymath who started out as an anthropologist; Gary Snyder, a poet; Stewart Brand, Editor of the Whole Earth Catalog; and so on. There were all these really interesting people, but I was a young kid, you know. There were a bunch of us kids and it was a big property for us to run around on. My mother was the gardener (and photographer, with an onsite darkroom) so she had an organic garden, chickens—it was fun, free-range living for kids in a way. I had my first unusual schooling experience there. We were all going to the public schools in the area, and then the parents just decided 1 year to set up their own school. We learned about mythology and all these little things—I can't remember all of the details. I remember mythology because Bill (the founder) was very into Quetzalcoatl (part of the Aztec ancient culture mythologies). When I was about 10, my mother, her partner, my brother and myself moved to California to live close to the San Francisco Zen Center, which my mother and stepdad knew about through Lindisfarne.

Now I was part of another community, but this was in the city, not in the country, and there weren't many children there—it was not as fun Lindisfarne, people were very serious in their black robes and silent meditations. My mother was very much part of the community; we would eat our meals at the Zen Center, complete with a silent period and a Zen meal chant. I hadn't been brought up terribly conventionally, but the people around me were nevertheless very interesting and stimulating.

I got into the top ranked public high school in San Francisco and I didn't like it. What I didn't like was feeling like an anonymous/indistinct kid in a classroom. Feeling unsatisfied, the next year I went to another high school where some of my close friends were going. In retrospect, it was a great school but, I still changed and went to a third high school the next year. All the while I was doing well academically, but I was just not into it. In my fourth (senior) year, I went back to the same high school; I went for about half the day, and then I just walked out—I didn't want to be there! And that was it. I dropped out of high school. I worked at a restaurant, earned my GED (Graduate Equivalency Degree), and then I went onto City College of San Francisco and then the San Francisco State University. Basically, I just went and did undergrad because I figured someday I'd figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and it would be useful to have this under my belt.

HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO BECOME A NEUROSCIENTIST?

I had the good fortune of taking a transformative class. I had completed my undergrad and was feeling a little bit at loose ends. I'd studied clinical psychology, but it wasn't really the path I wanted to continue. I was in New York City at the time (I have a lot of family there) and I took a non-matriculated class in the graduate programme at City College of New York with Professor John S. Antrobus. It was called Cognitive Science, but it was basically a Perception and Cognition course. Turns out I found what I love—it was like wow, you can make a career out of this? That's amazing. And so, I applied to the Ph.D. programme.

While I was in the Ph.D. programme at City College in Cognitive Neuroscience, I worked with Walter Ritter, who had a lab at Einstein College of Medicine, so I ended up coming to Einstein to do my research. Walter then moved his grant to the Nathan Kline Institute, and so I had to move with him. I was officially working for Walter, running experiments, collecting data, but only speaking with him on the phone—he never came in. On the other hand, the person on the ground who I interacted with was John Foxe—he was really into multisensory integration, and I got excited about that. I ended up doing a multisensory project with John for my Ph.D. thesis. This worked out really well for me; the paper that represents the major part of my thesis has over 1000 citations (Molholm et al., 2002).

John and I were talking, and one idea was: understanding multisensory integration is really cool, but should we be thinking about how this applies to clinical populations? We started to think about multisensory integration, how it might break down, and what the impact could be for clinical populations. At that time, there were quite a few books and web-pages with services for sensory-integration therapy for autism, but there was no actual empirical testing of multisensory integration in this group. We got small grants from Cure Autism Now, which was the only foundation focused on autism at the time, and this allowed us to bring a student on for a project. We then got a big grant from NIH to study multisensory integration in autism, and that started my career in terms of its current direction in intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST YOUR JOB? WHAT DO YOU LIKE LEAST ABOUT YOUR JOB?

It's pretty amazing to be a scientist; you get paid to do research, trying to understand how the brain works, or how it doesn't work, trying to improve diagnosis and possibly inform treatments. Who wouldn't want to do this? And I really like my current intellectual environment. I'm working with a lot of basic neuroscientists; people who are looking at fundamental mechanisms, using more invasive approaches than we do in our human work. And it's fun! You get to go to conferences, meet with other scientists that are thinking about what you're thinking about. Being part of the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Centers Network is amazing. This is a group of people who are focused on making a difference, from basic research all the way to translational work, using every tool and method that's available to us. The field is advancing so rapidly. And I quite like mentoring. This summer we had eight interns in the lab, ranging from high school students to an M.D. Ph.D. student. It's just fun to communicate the excitement of what we do and see people getting inspired and stimulated by it. What don't I like? Well, just what everybody else doesn't like—all the bureaucracy that you have to deal with in any institution. I'm fortunate to have a team of people to help with that.

There is some stress to maintain funding; it is something that hangs over you. But you have to have funding to be able to do the work that you want to do. And, although frustrating, grant writing helps you get your ideas together in a very concrete way.

SPEAKING OF A RAPIDLY ADVANCING FIELD, WHERE DO YOU THINK NEUROSCIENCE MIGHT BE IN 20 TO 30 YEARS?

That's a really cool question. I honestly think that we are going to keep on feeling like we're living in the future—in terms of how fast technology is developing and impacting our everyday lives. This also affects the science that we can do. Are we going to be able to measure single neuron activity non-invasively? I don't know, we might. Regardless, I think we'll see major advances in understanding brain function and dysfunction, and the tools we have available to us will continue to advance. I hope that we're going to get to where we can really impact people's lives—by understanding and developing treatments for symptoms that are challenging and get in the way of people living their best lives, such as paranoid delusions or extreme difficulty interpreting social cues.

A huge challenge in the field, as we develop the ability to identify and treat disorders with confidence, is defining when something requires treatment. It often isn't black and white with neurodevelopmental conditions, and there will almost certainly be unintended consequences of more invasive treatments (e.g., gene therapy). When does an individual difference cross into a pathology? That line is very hard to define. For instance, there are a lot of people out there who have dyslexia or ADHD. Maybe parents wish their child didn't have dyslexia, but that person is who they are because they have dyslexia and they contribute to the variation that allows us as humans to be so successful.

SWITCHING TOPICS, DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR YOUNG WOMEN?

I've been very lucky—I haven't encountered many obstacles (that I'm aware of) because I'm a woman. But I know a lot of women have. Your sex simply should not make a difference in your ability to succeed in science. People are much more aware of sex discrimination and harassment issues now; I like to think that there's been a cultural change. I consider myself quiet-spoken, and what I've noticed is that it seems men have become educated or sensitized to the fact that there are people out there (men or women) who have things to say, meaningful contributions, who might not want to be forceful and pushy about it. You shouldn't have to be loud to be heard. I do feel very positive about the future. I see a lot of strong young women coming through my lab; they feel empowered, comfortable expressing their opinion, and being who they are. That being said, I do think there still are barriers, perhaps particularly to leadership positions. People are used to the fact that there are many males in leadership positions, people may still expect it. I am a professor and Director of an IDDRC, so it hasn't stopped me. I think that there are implicit biases for the presence of certain characteristics in a leader, and that these characteristics are often positively perceived in men but not in women.

Being in competitive research positions is also a challenge for people who want families. I have a family and know it is hard to be in a job that is very demanding and to raise children. When I was a graduate student, pregnant with my first child, a professor asked me if I meant to get pregnant! I thought it was funny and an antiquated response, but unfortunately in the recent past I've seen similar reactions to junior faculty being pregnant. It would be nice to live in a country where there was much better social support, with excellent and affordable daycare. It's a systematic problem in our country that requires policy change at the highest levels; it can't just be tackled by universities. I was lucky that my mother was nearby and able to help out.

Once you get to a certain level, you have more flexibility, but you don't always have that flexibility—you definitely don't at the beginning stages, which is when you're more likely to be starting your family.

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD?

It maybe cliché to say, but you really have to celebrate the successes. The journey from starting the research, obtaining results and getting the paper published can be long, so we really need to celebrate all those successes. You need to remember what your early goals were and then realize how you are actually meeting those goals.

One of the really difficult things in our field is that there is a lot of rejection involved, from the review process with papers, to excellent grants that don't get funded simply because of limited resources. That can be very discouraging; something that I would want to communicate to people is to just persist and keep trying. It's not you, it's the system. And yes, maybe there are some things you can improve, but you mustn't take it personally. When you do get a grant, make a big deal about it! Pat yourself on the back.

Another important point is to find mentors. Find mentors who lift you up, who support you, who are there for you, because you do need allies. And hopefully it's a productive relationship in both directions. Most senior people are so happy to have younger people come to them, who are excited and want to learn. Being able to interact with people at early stages of their career and support them is extremely gratifying for somebody like myself.

ANY PERSONAL NOTES? FAVOURITE THINGS?

I love travelling. I love seeing and experiencing different cultures. It's a great fortune that its part of my job. I go to conferences held all over the world, mingle with old and new colleagues and present data. I love reading novels, and I have a very strong walking habit!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INSIGHTS AND ADVICE

This interview was edited for length and clarity by D.L.H. and S.M.

我们 EJN 很荣幸地介绍阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦医学院儿科、多米尼克·P·紫珀神经科学系以及精神病学和行为科学系教授 Sophie Molholm 博士作为我们女性系列的下一位科学家在神经科学中。我们开始这个系列是为了让在我们社区工作的优秀女科学家获得关注和认可（Helmreich 等人，  2017）；您可以在这里找到所有以前的简介：https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1460-9568.women-in-science。

我很高兴在 2023 年 7 月与 Molholm 博士交谈。我们采访中引用了一句令人难忘的话：“这可能是陈词滥调，但你真的必须庆祝成功”。

博士简介 莫霍姆的背景

Molholm 博士于 1989 年毕业于旧金山州立大学，获得心理学学士学位。2002 年，她在纽约市立大学研究生中心获得认知神经科学博士学位，其论文为：人类视觉听觉多感觉处理的皮质神经生理学，并因此获得纽约市立大学杰出论文奖（维基百科，  2023 年）。

博士简介 莫霍姆的作品

“作为一名认知神经科学家，我的研究重点是了解大脑的复杂性及其在塑造我们的世界体验中的作用。我的好奇心在于控制人脑如何处理和整合感官输入以影响感知和行为的基本过程。这包括研究注意力、言语处理和与执行功能相关的高阶认知机制。

除了担任实验室的 PI 之外，我还共同指导 NICHD 资助的 Rose F. Kennedy 智力和发育研究中心以及相关的智力和发育障碍 (IDD) T32 培训项目。通过这些项目，我和我的同事旨在提供一个丰富的知识和多学科环境，在其中进行研究，以改善受 IDD 影响的个人的生活。https://www.einsteinmed.edu/faculty/12028/sophie-molholm/（阿尔伯特爱因斯坦医学院，  2023）。

Molholm 博士研究小组最新的 EJN 出版物是《自闭症和典型发育中的提示运动处理：儿童和青少年反应锁定神经活动的高密度电图研究》（Wakim 等人，  2023）。Molholm 博士还担任 EJN 认知神经科学学科领域的章节编辑。

EJN：您想在自己的背景中添加一些内容吗？

SM：

我有过非传统的早期教育经历——我在两个社区长大，当我大声说出来时，听起来比我想象的要奇怪得多。我出生在伦敦，一直住在那里直到我大约 5 岁，然后我们搬回了我父母所在的美国。我们住在纽约长岛，我的母亲和她的伴侣参与了那里一个叫林迪斯法恩的社区。

这是一个知识分子社区，我们住在一个小屋里，有很多小屋——它一定是某个时候给这个社区的创始人威廉·欧文·汤普森的一个度假村。我的继父非常积极地参与组织社区会议。我们拜访了一些有趣的人：Rusty Schweickart，阿波罗 9 号的宇航员；Francisco Varela，一位非常著名的认知神经科学家；格雷戈里·贝特森 (Gregory Bateson)，一位博学者，最初是一名人类学家；加里·斯奈德，诗人；斯图尔特·布兰德，《全球概览》编辑；等等。这里有很多非常有趣的人，但你知道，我还是个小孩子。我们有一群孩子，那是一个让我们跑来跑去的大房子。我的母亲是园丁（也是摄影师，有一个现场暗室），所以她有一个有机花园，还有鸡——在某种程度上，这对孩子们来说是有趣的、自由放养的生活。我在那里经历了第一次不寻常的求学经历。我们都去该地区的公立学校，然后父母决定用一年的时间建立自己的学校。我们了解了神话和所有这些小事情——我记不起所有的细节。我记得神话是因为比尔（创始人）非常喜欢羽蛇神（阿兹特克古代文化神话的一部分）。当我大约 10 岁的时候，我的母亲、她的伴侣、我的兄弟和我自己搬到了加利福尼亚州，住在旧金山禅宗中心附近，我的母亲和继父通过林迪斯法恩知道了那里。

现在我是另一个社区的一部分，但这是在城市，而不是在乡村，那里没有很多孩子——没有林迪斯法恩那么有趣，人们穿着黑色长袍，安静地冥想，非常严肃。我的母亲是这个社区的重要一员。我们会在禅宗中心吃饭，伴随着一段静默期和禅宗餐歌。我的成长环境并不十分传统，但我周围的人仍然非常有趣和刺激。

我进入了旧金山排名第一的公立高中，但我不喜欢它。我不喜欢的是在教室里感觉自己像一个无名/模糊的孩子。由于感到不满足，第二年我去了另一所高中，我的一些亲密朋友就读在那里。回想起来，那是一所很棒的学校，但第二年我还是改变了，去了第三所高中。一直以来，我的学业成绩都很好，但我就是不喜欢它。在我的第四年（高四），我回到了同一所高中；我走了大约半天，然后就走了出去——我不想在那里！就是这样。我从高中退学了。我在一家餐馆工作，获得了 GED（同等研究生学位），然后我进入了旧金山城市学院，然后进入了旧金山州立大学。基本上，我只是去读了本科，因为我想有一天我会弄清楚我一生想做什么，并且把它掌握在我的手中会很有用。

您是如何决定成为一名神经科学家的？

我有幸参加了一门变革性的课程。我已经完成了本科学业，但感觉有点无所事事。我学过临床心理学，但这并不是我真正想继续的道路。当时我在纽约市（我有很多家人在那里），我在纽约城市学院的研究生课程中与 John S. Antrobus 教授一起参加了非入学课程。它被称为认知科学，但它基本上是一门感知和认知课程。结果我发现了我喜欢的东西——哇，你可以以此为职业吗？太棒了。因此，我申请了博士学位。程序。

当我在攻读博士学位时。在城市学院认知神经科学项目期间，我与沃尔特·里特（Walter Ritter）一起工作，他在爱因斯坦医学院有一个实验室，所以我最终来到爱因斯坦那里做我的研究。沃尔特随后将他的资助转移到了内森克莱恩研究所，所以我不得不和他一起搬家。我正式为沃尔特工作，进行实验，收集数据，但只与他通电话——他从来没有进来过。另一方面，在现场与我互动的人是约翰福克斯——他真的很喜欢多感官整合，我对此感到兴奋。我最终与约翰一起完成了一个多感官项目以获得博士学位。论文。这对我来说效果非常好；代表我论文主要部分的论文被引用超过 1000 次（Molholm et al.,  2002）。

约翰和我正在交谈，其中一个想法是：了解多感觉整合确实很酷，但我们是否应该考虑这如何应用于临床人群？我们开始思考多感觉整合、它可能如何崩溃，以及对临床人群可能产生的影响。当时有相当多的书籍和网页提供自闭症感觉统合治疗的服务，但并没有针对这个群体进行多感觉统合的实际实证测试。我们从 Cure Autism Now 获得了小额资助，这是当时唯一专注于自闭症的基金会，这使我们能够带一名学生参与一个项目。然后，我们从 NIH 获得了一笔巨额资助，用于研究自闭症的多感觉整合，这开始了我的职业生涯，目前的方向是智力和发育障碍 (IDD)。

您最喜欢的工作是什么？您最不喜欢工作的什么？

成为一名科学家真是太神奇了；你获得报酬进行研究，试图了解大脑如何工作，或者它如何不工作，试图改进诊断并可能为治疗提供信息。谁不想这样做呢？我真的很喜欢我现在的智力环境。我正在与许多基础神经科学家合作；他们正在研究基本机制，使用比我们在人类工作中更具侵入性的方法。这很有趣！你可以参加会议，会见其他正在思考你的想法的科学家。成为智力和发育障碍研究中心网络的一部分真是太棒了。这是一群专注于做出改变的人，从基础研究一直到转化工作，使用我们可用的每一种工具和方法。该领域发展如此迅速。我非常喜欢指导。今年夏天，我们实验室有八名实习生，从高中生到医学博士。学生。传达我们所做的事情的兴奋并看到人们受到启发和刺激是很有趣的。我不喜欢什么？好吧，这正是其他人所不喜欢的——在任何机构中你都必须面对的官僚作风。我很幸运有一个团队可以帮助我解决这个问题。

维持资金存在一定压力；它是笼罩着你的东西。但你必须有资金才能完成你想做的工作。而且，尽管令人沮丧，但资助写作可以帮助您以非常具体的方式将您的想法整合在一起。

谈到快速发展的领域，您认为 20 到 30 年后神经科学会发展到什么程度？

这是一个非常酷的问题。老实说，我认为我们将继续感觉自己生活在未来——就技术发展的速度和影响我们日常生活的速度而言。这也影响了我们可以做的科学。我们是否能够非侵入性地测量单个神经元的活动？我不知道，我们可能会。无论如何，我认为我们将在理解大脑功能和功能障碍方面看到重大进展，并且我们可用的工具将继续进步。我希望我们能够真正影响人们的生活，通过了解和开发治疗方法来治疗那些具有挑战性并妨碍人们过上最好生活的症状，例如偏执妄想或解释社交线索的极度困难。

随着我们培养自信地识别和治疗疾病的能力，该领域的一个巨大挑战是确定何时需要治疗。神经发育状况通常不是黑白分明的，而且几乎肯定会出现更具侵入性的治疗（例如基因治疗）带来的意想不到的后果。个体差异什么时候会变成一种病理现象？这条线很难定义。例如，有很多人患有阅读障碍或多动症。也许父母希望他们的孩子没有阅读障碍，但他们就是这样的人，因为他们患有阅读障碍，并且他们促成了让我们作为人类如此成功的变异。

转换话题，您对年轻女性有什么建议吗？

我很幸运——因为我是一名女性，所以我没有遇到很多障碍（据我所知）。但我知道很多女性都有。你的性别不应该影响你在科学上取得成功的能力。人们现在更加意识到性别歧视和骚扰问题；我喜欢认为文化发生了变化。我认为自己说话很安静，我注意到，男性似乎已经受过教育，或者对这样一个事实变得敏感：有些人（男性或女性）有话要说，有有意义的贡献，但他们可能不想要对此采取强硬和咄咄逼人的态度。您不必大声才能被听到。我对未来确实感到非常积极。我看到很多坚强的年轻女性来到我的实验室；他们感到自己被赋予了权力，可以轻松地表达自己的意见，并做自己。话虽这么说，我确实认为仍然存在障碍，也许特别是在领导职位方面。人们已经习惯了领导岗位上男性较多的事实，人们可能仍然对此抱有期待。我是一名教授兼 IDDRC 主任，所以这并没有阻止我。我认为领导者的某些特征存在隐含的偏见，并且这些特征通常在男性中被积极地感知，但在女性中却不然。

对于想要家庭的人来说，担任竞争性研究职位也是一个挑战。我有一个家庭，知道从事一份要求很高的工作并抚养孩子很困难。当我还是一名研究生时，怀着我的第一个孩子，一位教授问我是否打算怀孕！我认为这很有趣，而且是一个过时的反应，但不幸的是，最近我看到了初级教师怀孕时的类似反应。如果生活在一个拥有更好社会支持、优质且负担得起的日托服务的国家，那就太好了。这是我们国家的一个系统性问题，需要最高层的政策改变；这不能仅仅由大学来解决。我很幸运，我的母亲就在附近，能够提供帮助。

一旦你达到一定的水平，你就有了更多的灵活性，但你并不总是有这种灵活性——在开始阶段你肯定没有，这是你更有可能开始组建家庭的时候。

您还有什么要补充的吗？

这也许是陈词滥调，但你确实必须庆祝成功。从开始研究、获得结果到发表论文的过程可能很漫长，所以我们真的需要庆祝所有这些成功。您需要记住您的早期目标是什么，然后意识到您实际上是如何实现这些目标的。

我们领域真正困难的事情之一是，涉及大量拒绝，从论文的审查过程，到仅仅因为资源有限而得不到资助的优秀资助。这可能会非常令人沮丧；我想告诉人们的是坚持并不断尝试。不是你的问题，是系统的问题。是的，也许有些事情你可以改进，但你不能把它视为针对你个人的。当您获得补助金时，请认真对待它！拍拍自己的背。

还有一点很重要，那就是寻找导师。寻找能够鼓舞你、支持你、支持你的导师，因为你确实需要盟友。希望这在两个方向上都是富有成效的关系。大多数老年人都很高兴有年轻人来找他们，他们很兴奋并且想要学习。对于像我这样的人来说，能够在职业生涯的早期阶段与他们互动并为他们提供支持是非常令人欣慰的。

有个人笔记吗？最爱的东西？

我喜欢旅行。我喜欢看到和体验不同的文化。这是我工作的一部分，真是太幸运了。我参加世界各地举行的会议，与新老同事交流并展示数据。我喜欢看小说，而且我有很强的走路习惯！

感谢您的见解和建议

DLH 和 SM 对本次采访进行了长度和清晰度的编辑