Ann M Rasmusson, MD

Ann Rasmusson, MD is the Psychiatry Liaison, PTSD Research and Education, at VA Boston Healthcare System, a Research Associate of the VA National Center for PTSD, Women’s Health Science Division, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University. She earned her undergraduate degree at North Dakota State University and MD at the University of Chicago before completing a residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins and a neuropsychopharmacology research fellowship and psychiatry residency at Yale University School of Medicine.

Dr. Rasmusson’s basic research focused on understanding the role of the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus in coordinating hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, mesoprefrontal cortical monoamine, and behavioral responses to unconditioned and conditioned stress. Her clinical research has contributed to the current expanded view of neurobiological factors that contribute to PTSD risk and stress resilience. This research has evolved to focus on gender differences in the neurobiology of PTSD and a role for neuroactive steroids and neuropeptides in the pathophysiology and treatment of PTSD and its comorbidities. She is currently a Lead Investigator of a DOD sponsored multisite Phase II investigation of the GABAergic neuroactive steroid ganaxolone in the treatment of PTSD and Principal Investigator on an NIMH study of GABAergic neuroactive steroids in the pathophysiology of PTSD, a VA Merit Review investigating gender-related neurobiological factors that promote refractory nicotine dependence in veterans with PTSD, and the VA RR&D sponsored Translational Center for Traumatic Brain Injury and Stress (TRACTS) investigation of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) efficacy in PTSD with and without TBI. She is the author of 56 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and chapters and is the mother of one lovely teenage daughter.