Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock. Today, Back from the Abyss is on the road. I'm in Denver at the University of

Colorado Medical School, and this is a interview I've been looking forward to for a long time.

We've been getting a lot of listener requests to talk more about sex hormones. It's definitely

one of my big interests, I think as listeners know. And so I was looking, who in Colorado is the expert on this?

And wouldn't you know, it's the chair of the Department of Psychiatry at University of Colorado,

Dr. Epperson.

Hi. How are you doing today, Craig? It's great to be here.

Yeah, Neil Epperson, thank you.

It's so fun. My wife said, why don't you just do these distance interviews on Zoom and not drive all the way down there?

But it's so fun to meet you.

In fact, we looked at each other and thought maybe we'd met somewhere.

Just have a familiar face, I guess.

Both of us.

We have that next door look.

So this is going to be a deep dive into sort of all things sex hormones and

psychiatric illness.

But maybe we could just start, just give us a thumbnail of your research interests,

what you're most interested in psychiatry, what you've been studying.

Sure.

Well, my interest in hormones began a long time ago. I was a third

year resident at Yale at the time. And, you know, as a physician scientist, you're kind of in a very

special situation where you meet people who present with various mental health challenges.

...