Jennifer Felger
PhD
Dr. Felger studies the effects of inflammatory cytokines on neurotransmitters and neural circuits as they relate to behavioral change.
Titles and Roles
- Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
- Emory University School of Medicine
- Research Program
- Cancer Prevention and Control
Biography
Jennifer Felger, PhD, serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Felger also is the Laboratory Director of the Emory Mind-Body Program. She studies the effects of inflammatory cytokines on neurotransmitters and neural circuits as they relate to behavioral change. She also collaborates with researchers at Winship Cancer Institute and Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing to examine molecular and cellular pathways of immune activation in cancer patients who experience behavioral change in response to treatment.
Dr. Felger is a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute.
Education
Dr. Felger earned her PhD in Neuroscience from Emory University. She then continued her training in Neuroscience and Immunology as a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University.
Research
Dr. Felger is currently exploring the role of dopamine in alterations in neurocircuitry associated with increased inflammation in patients with major depression using fMRI and continuing her translational work to better understand the underlying neural and metabolic pathways by which cytokines may affect dopamine and glutamate to mediate depressive symptoms. She is also involved in ongoing projects examining the molecular and cellular pathways of immune activation in patients with major depression and in cancer patients who experience behavioral change in response to therapy.
Publications
Publications Publication Date
Awards
In 2020, Dr. Felger received the Emory 1% Award which recognizes Emory faculty whose National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposals have been ranked in the top 1% by NIH reviewers. She is also the recipient of a KL2 Scholarship through the Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute and a 2014 NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.