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Leah Mayo

Visiting Senior Lecturer

Assistant Lecturer. My research focuses on the neurobiology of stress and emotion processing in healthy and clinical populations.

Presentation

Many psychiatric conditions are hallmarked by dysregulated stress reactivity and emotional responding. My research aims to better understand stress and emotion processing in order to develop novel psychiatric therapies.

Our work combines behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging methods to gain better insight into how we perceive and react to stressful situations and emotional stimuli. I am particularly interested in the role of the endocannabinoid system, a neuromodulatory system involved in both stress reactivity and emotion processing. In healthy populations, we are exploring how external factors (e.g. stress, drugs of abuse) influence the endocannabinoid system. In clinical populations, we are interested in how the endocannabinoid system becomes dysregulated and contributes to impairments in stress and emotional reactivity. Our overall goal is to determine if the endocannabinoid system can serve as a novel target in the treatment of psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Publications

Publications in DiVA

2026

Lars Östman Vasko, Elisabeth Paul, He Zhang, Evelina Larsson, Irene Perini, Lilly Schwieler, Sophie Erhardt, Lovisa Holm, Åsa Axén, Leah Mayo, Markus Heilig, Andrea Johansson Capusan (2026) The role of proinflammatory response and the kynurenine pathway in the association between childhood maltreatment and lifetime substance use disorder NEUROBIOLOGY OF STRESS, Vol. 42, Article 100820 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2026.100820
Ryann Tansey, Irene Perini, Gavin N. Petrie, Connor James Haggarty, Raegan Mary Rose Mazurka, Adam Yngve, Sarah Mina, Madeleine Jones, Hilda Engelbrektsson, Andrea Johansson Capusan, Matthew N. Hill, Markus Heilig, Leah Mayo (2026) Functional neuroimaging of fatty acid amide hydrolase inhibition in posttraumatic stress disorder: a randomized clinical trial Translational Psychiatry, Vol. 16, Article 95 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-026-03864-3
Abigail R. Lunge, Lars Östman Vasko, Ryann Tansey, Daniel J. O. Roche, Elisabeth Paul, Andrea Johansson Capusan, Markus Heilig, Leah Mayo (2026) Individual and additive effects of childhood maltreatment and substance use disorder histories on baseline and stress-induced changes in peripheral stress biomarkers Psychopharmacology, Vol. 243, p. 443-456 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-025-06953-1
Ana Deutsch, Connor J. Haggarty, Gavin N. Petrie, Matthew N. Hill, Anya K. Bershad, Harriet de Wit, Leah Mayo (2026) The effect of methamphetamine and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine on peripheral endocannabinoid concentrations: a study in healthy adults Psychopharmacology, Vol. 243, p. 413-426 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-025-06888-7
Gavin N. Petrie, Raegan Mary Rose Mazurka, Elisabeth Paul, Niclas Stensson, Bijar Ghafouri, Matthew N. Hill, Markus Heilig, Leah Mayo (2026) Effects of acute alcohol administration on endocannabinoids and relation to subjective effects Psychopharmacology, Vol. 243, p. 401-411 (Article in journal) https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-025-06843-6

News

Research leader and experiment participant with electrodes on her chin.

The brain’s cannabinoid system protects against addiction

High levels of the body’s own cannabinoid substances protect against developing addiction in individuals previously exposed to childhood maltreatment, according to a new study from Linköping University.
researcher and participant each sits in front of a computer with a curtain between them so that they do not see each other.

CSAN were praised at neuroscience event

Society for Social Neuroscience recently organized its 12th annual meeting. CSAN was well-represented at this year’s meeting, with individuals from several groups being recognized. One of them was Leah Mayo who was awarded the Early Career Award.
Leah Mayo.

Leah Mayo received the Young Investigator Award

Leah Mayo, researcher at CSAN, has received this year’s Young Investigator Award from the European Behavioral Pharmacology Society (EBPS). - It is really encouraging to be recognized by many of the scientists who have inspired a lot of my research.

About me

CV

  • 2020 Assistant Professor, Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience (CSAN), Linköping University
  • 2015 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CSAN, Linköping University
  • 2015 Ph.D. in Neurobiology, University of Chicago
    Advisor: Harriet de Wit
    Thesis title: A multidimensional approach to de novo drug conditioning in healthy humans: combining self-report, behavioral, and psychophysiological measures.
  • 2013 M.S. in Molecular Pathogenesis & Molecular Medicine, University of Chicago
  • 2009 B.S. in Neuroscience, University of Michigan
    Advisors: Shelly Flagel, Terry Robinson, Huda Akil
    Thesis title: Characterizing individual variation to reward-related cues in animals selectively bred for locomotor response to novelty.

Awards

  • 2020-2024 Swedish Research Council Starting Grant
  • 2019-2021 Brain & Behavior Research Foundation NARSAD Young Investigator Award
  • 2015-2017 Linköping University Centre for Systems Neurobiology Postdoctoral Fellowship

Organisation

A researcher is looking at encased samples in a lab.

Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience - CSAN

Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience (CSAN) integrates knowledge and methodology from different areas of basic and clinical neuroscience.

Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences (BKV)

What characterizes the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences (BKV) is the wide breadth of research and education. BKV is one of the largest departments at LiU with affiliation mainly to the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.