FORT COLLINS - Colorado State University will share a grant from the National Institutes of Health as a collaborator in a new women's health program.

The NIH will fund 11 Specialized Centers of Research on Sex and Gender Factors Affecting Women's Health with about $11 million per year for five years. The research will focus on mental health, reproductive health, metabolic disorders, osteoporosis, pain disorders and urinary tract conditions.

"Almost 10 percent of the adult U.S. population may suffer from a depressive illness with large economic consequences in addition to human suffering. Colorado State's research will work to identify factors that might influence brain development in ways that would make it more likely that adult events could trigger major depressive disorder," said Stuart Tobet, a researcher in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, in a prepared statement. "A key focus for us is that women are two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer major depressive disorder than men. We are trying to find out why, based on hypotheses about sex differences in brain development."

Tolbert and his colleague Robert Handa will work to examine factors in laboratory models using mice and rats. A team at Harvard Medical School will look at the human brain factors that might cause depression.