Our DNA expression controls nearly if not everything that we are. It informs how we look, the diseases we are susceptible to, and shapes our personality. It even sets the bar for our risk of developing anxiety and depression. Females are twice as likely as males to develop these symptoms, and we have yet to find why. In today’s episode, we speak with Dr. Marija Kundakovic, assistant professor in Neuroscience at Fordham University where she studies the epigenetic basis of behavior. Her work focuses on the hormonal and environmental factors that mediate sex differences in depression, anxiety and drug abuse. Her findings can open the door to development of new diagnostic tools, and new preventative and therapeutic approaches addressing female mental health. She offers a multidisciplinary insight that gets right down to the question that keeps all of us scientists up at night: how does it work?