CLINICAL AND TRANSLATIONAL AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE PROGRAM

The Clinical and Translational Affective Neuroscience Program is a large group of dedicated clinical neuroscientists in the Department of Psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and directed by Dr. Mary Phillips. The group uses multimodal imaging techniques to examine the function and structural integrity of neural circuits supporting human emotion processing and emotion regulation. Our long-term research goal is use these neuroimaging techniques to identify specific functional and structural abnormalities in neural systems underlying the different processes important for emotion processing and emotion regulation that may be present as objective biomarkers of disorder in individuals with major psychiatric illnesses, including bipolar disorder, unipolar depression, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

 The identification of these objective biomarkers of psychiatric disorders is a crucially important step toward improving the accuracy and speed of diagnosis in many individuals who suffer from these major psychiatric illnesses. Objective biomarkers can also be used to identify as early as possible those individuals at genetic risk of developing a major psychiatric illness who are most likely to develop the illness in the future. These biomarkers can also inform the choice of treatment for individuals suffering from these illnesses.

Who are we?

Director

Mary L. Phillips, MD

      Learn more about Mary L. Phillips's Research

Core Faculty

Cecile Ladouceur

Eydie Moses-Kolko

Lisa Pan

Dustin Pardini

Other Faculty

Rasim Diler

Vaibhav Diwadkar

Rajesh Narendran

Holly Swartz

Michael Travis

Postdoctoral Researchers

Jorge Almeida

Benjamin Mullin

Robin Nusslock

Susan Perlman

Karina Quevedo

Amelia Versace

Affiliated Research Fellows

Matt Keener