Dr. Seth Norrholm, Ph.D.

Dr. Norrholm, thank you for joining me today. Why don’t you start out by telling me a little bit about yourself. What does your work entail?  

I am a neuroscientist by training, currently serving a one-year distinguished visiting professorship at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs where I’m teaching cadets about abnormal psychology and stress and health.

I’ll be back in Detroit in May to return to my full-time position as the Director of the Neuroscience Center for Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma at Wayne State University in their school of medicine. There, I am an associate professor covering trauma and the brain, with an emphasis on PTSD and the other illnesses that tend to come along with it like depression, anxiety disorders, and substance use.

I’ve been at Wayne State since 2019; before that I was at Emory University in Atlanta for fifteen years and worked at the Atlanta VA. So, I’ve been working with individuals with PTSD and related disorders for over 20 years now.

What made you interested in behavioral neurosciences?

My father was a disabled veteran. He was in the Navy for a number of years as an engineer on submarines, so I grew up in a military family. When I was about 12 or 13 years old, my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The way it was explained to me at the time, he was having problems with his vision, and parts of his visual field were missing. So, he went to the eye doctor, and from my adolescent perspective, he was going to get his eyes checked and may come out of there with glasses. But he actually had this tumor, which was in the part of the brain where the optic nerves go toward your visual cortex, and so that was affecting his vision.

For me, the idea of a visual problem having a deeper brain issue behind it was fascinating, and so that really sparked my interest in neuroscience. Plus, he was a veteran, and growing up in a military family I’ve always had an affinity for servicemembers and veterans. I kind of merged those two together in my career path.

I was unfortunately what they call med boarded, or excluded from service, due to some pretty benign medical conditions. So, it kind of became a career objective of mine to serve in the best way that I could, which was to help those who have served our country. That’s what led me to the VA starting in 2003, all the way to my current position here at the Air Force Academy. It’s been a joining of interests of mine, from a personal and professional perspective.

What is your favorite aspect of your work?

I’d have to say it’s interacting with the people. Right now, I’m teaching cadets about stress and resilience, and hopefully staving off anxiety and depression and PTSD. Most of the work in my career has been after the fact, after people have been traumatized. When you get to the level of service members and first responders and veterans, you’re already looking at people who have, what you could say for all intents and purposes, is a damaged brain so to speak. And what I’m able to do now is to teach about these things ahead of time and to build resilience so this group of 4,000 cadets who are yet to be deployed have a greater sense of strength and foundation to face the stressors they’re ultimately going to face. So, I think it’s interacting with the people.

In my civilian work back in Detroit, I interact with people who have undergone trauma and again trying to treat the PTSD as best as we can but also see if we can identify risk factors. In a place like Detroit, there are social determinants of mental health as well as the potential biological or physical vulnerabilities.