Jess Jacobs, Ph.D.
Keystone Grant Awardee
Jessica T. Jacobs, PhD is a postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Physiology at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. She earned her PhD in Neuroscience from Georgetown University, where her doctoral research focused on the neural mechanisms underlying social behavior in nonhuman primates.
During her graduate training, Dr. Jacobs was mentored by Ludise Malkova and Patrick Forcelli, using intracerebral pharmacology to investigate the role of the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in regulating affiliative and social behaviors. Her work combined careful behavioral analysis with causal circuit manipulations in primate models.
Prior to graduate school, Dr. Jacobs completed post-baccalaureate training at the National Institute of Mental Health as an IRTA fellow in the Lab of Neuropsychology. There, she worked within the research groups of Bruno Averbeck and Mortimer Mishkin, examining neural correlates of attention, decision-making, and primate brain organization.
In the Nordman Lab, Dr. Jacobs studies the neural circuitry of social behavior and stress, integrating circuit-level manipulations with rigorously quantified behavior. Her work reflects a broad comparative perspective shaped by training across species and experimental approaches.
Outside the lab, Dr. Jacobs is deeply committed to mentorship and teaching, and brings an interdisciplinary perspective informed by her background in psychology and philosophy.
2026
The anterior BNST is required for novelty-driven social interaction
Jessica T. Jacobs, Mikaela L. Aholt, Taylor Lineberry, Magdalene P. Adjei, Elana Qasem, Sophia Aaflaq, Sandria W. Athul, Buffy S. Ellsworth, Jacob C. Nordman
The Journal of Neuroscience, 2026, pp. e1743252026
2025
Familiarity gates socially transmitted aggression via the medial amygdala
Magdalene P. Adjei, Elana Qasem, Sophia Aaflaq, Jessica T. Jacobs, Savannah Skinner, Fletcher Summa, Claudia Spotanski, Rylee Thompson, Mikaela L. Aholt, Taylor Lineberry, Jacob C. Nordman
Journal of Neuroscience, 2025
2024
Nooshin Mojahed, Magdalene Pine Adjei, Elana Qasem, Sophia Aaflaq, Jessica T. Jacobs, Temitope Adu, Ben Richardson, Jacob C. Nordman,
Frontiers in Neuroscience, vol. 18, 2024
2023
C. J. Bartsch, S. Aaflaq, J. T. Jacobs, M. Smith, F. Summa, S. Skinner, E. Qasem, R. Thompson, Z. Li, J. C. Nordman
Behavioral Neuroscience, 2023
Visualizing traumatic stress-induced structural plasticity in a medial amygdala pathway using mGRASP
Caitlyn J. Bartsch, Jessica T. Jacobs, Nooshin Mojahed, Elana Qasem, Molly Smith, Oliver Caldwell, Sophia Aaflaq, Jacob C. Nordman
Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, vol. 16, 2023