[9] Gould and the researchers reported new neurons in adult marmoset monkeys are added to three neocortical association areas important in cognitive function: the prefrontal, inferior temporal and posterior parietal cortex.
In 1989, she joined the lab of Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University as a postdoctoral researcher[10] investigating the effect of stress hormones on rat brains.
[11] Confused by this anomaly, Gould assumed she must have been making some simple experimental error, and she went to the Rockefeller library, hoping she could find an explanation as to what she was doing wrong.
Several 1962 papers revealed the research at MIT by Joseph Altman claiming that adult rats, cats, and guinea pigs all formed new neurons.
[12] Further investigation by Gould revealed that a decade later Michael Kaplan, at the University of New Mexico, had used an electron microscope to image neurons giving birth.
Her laboratory explores issues related to the regulation of cell production and survival in three brain regions the hippocampus, the olfactory bulb and the neocortex in rodents and primates (marmosets and macaques).
[16] Gould and her colleagues found that the ovarian steroid estrogen enhances cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus of the adult rat.
Also and conversely, steroid hormones of the adrenal glands were found to inhibit cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus but do so indirectly via an NMDA receptor-dependent mechanism.
[17] Gould's research has shown that exposure of aversive stimuli results in a decrease in cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus of adult rats, tree shrews and marmoset monkeys.
[20] Gould's team has observed that many new cells in the hippocampus of adult rats and monkeys do not survive in animals living under standard laboratory conditions.
A decrease in the number of new neurons following treatment with anti-mitotic drugs impairs trace eye blink conditioning but not spatial learning in a Morris water maze, both hippocampal-dependent tasks.
[11] In 2009 she was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) for her groundbreaking work on neurogenesis.