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Press & Media
Interviews and expert commentary from the TReNDS Lab's director, reproductive psychiatrist Dr. Sheila Shanmugan, on mental health across pregnancy, the postpartum period, and the menopausal transition.
Television
CNN News Central, September 4, 2026
Dr. Shanmugan Returns to CNN to Discuss Postpartum Psychosis
Following the mistrial in a high-profile Massachusetts case, Dr. Shanmugan explained that evidence of planning does not rule out postpartum psychosis — clinically, the two can coexist. She also addressed how postpartum psychotic symptoms can be difficult to recognize and highlighted the need for biological tests in reproductive psychiatry, such as blood-based or imaging markers, to assess a person's diagnosis more definitively than symptoms and self-report alone allow.
CNN News Central, August 27, 2026
Dr. Shanmugan Discusses Early Warning Signs of Postpartum Psychosis on CNN
Dr. Shanmugan described the postpartum period as a particularly vulnerable time and outlined early warning signs of postpartum psychosis that family members can watch for: severe, persistent insomnia in a mother who does not feel tired — a combination that sets emerging psychosis apart from the ordinary exhaustion of caring for a newborn — and confusion or disorientation that waxes and wanes, a pattern that makes the condition hard to recognize and raises the risk to the infant. She emphasized that anyone experiencing either symptom should seek help promptly.
CNN News Central, July 29, 2026
Dr. Shanmugan Appears on CNN to Discuss Postpartum Mental Health
Dr. Shanmugan discussed perinatal mental health and clarified the distinctions between postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis: how the two conditions differ in symptoms, severity, and treatment, and when to seek help.
The New York Times
March 5, 2025
Dr. Shanmugan and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Laura Pritschet were interviewed as independent experts on brain changes during pregnancy associated with postpartum depression. The article also cites their Science Advances commentary calling for individualized brain signatures of perinatal depression.
Science
July 12, 2024
Interviewed as an outside expert for Science's news coverage of a Science Advances study finding that sex and gender map onto distinct brain networks, on how sex- and gender-based differences in the brain have been understudied and their terms often conflated.
Psychiatric News
September 25, 2024
Interviewed at length as an outside expert on the same study, on why the individual and interactive effects of sex and gender on brain networks remain poorly understood, how studying them in typical development could clarify risk and resilience for conditions such as depression and ADHD, and how functional brain mapping might eventually inform treatments such as transcranial magnetic stimulation.
The Philadelphia Citizen
November 29, 2023
Interviewed on the cognitive and functional symptoms of the menopausal transition — difficulty concentrating, staying organized, and sustaining energy — and how they interfere with the work of otherwise high-functioning women.
Podcasts
Making Sense of Pregnancy
March 19, 2025
A conversation about the lab's work using brain imaging to estimate who is at risk for depression during and after pregnancy, and the Science Advances paper on precision functional mapping that outlines the approach.
The Reflective Doc
November 21, 2022 · now A Mind of Her Own
A conversation with psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Reid on who is at risk for mood and anxiety symptoms in perimenopause, how menopause-related cognitive changes can resemble ADHD, when estrogen therapy is worth considering, and what personalized care through the menopausal transition could look like.