A5073259162- Mental Health Research Topics
- Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Child and Animal Learning Development
- Action Observation and Synchronization
- Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Media Influence and Health
- Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Health disparities and outcomes
- Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Cultural Differences and Values
- Neural dynamics and brain function
- Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Face Recognition and Perception
- Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Urban Green Space and Health
- COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Aging and Gerontology Research
University of Rochester
2018-2025
University of Rochester Medical Center
2019-2024
Harvard University
2010-2018
McLean Hospital
2017-2018
Harvard University Press
2012-2017
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2010-2011
Vassar College
2010
Humans are thought to have evolved brain regions in the left frontal and temporal cortex that uniquely capable of language processing. However, congenitally blind individuals also activate visual some verbal tasks. We provide evidence this activity fact reflects find individuals, behaves similarly classic regions: (i) BOLD signal is higher during sentence comprehension than linguistically degraded control conditions more difficult; (ii) modulated by phonological information, lexical semantic...
Research in psychology has suggested that reading fiction can improve individuals' social-cognitive abilities. Findings from neuroscience show and social cognition both recruit the default network, a network which is known to support our capacity simulate hypothetical scenes, spaces mental states. The current research tests hypothesis enhances because it serves exercise subnetwork involved theory of mind. While undergoing functional neuroimaging, participants read literary passages differed...
Thinking about other people's thoughts recruits a specific group of brain regions, including the temporo-parietal junctions (TPJ), precuneus (PC), and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). The same regions were recruited when children (N=20, 5-11 years) adults (N=8) listened to descriptions characters' mental states, compared physical events. Between ages 5 11 years, responses in bilateral TPJ became increasingly stories describing states as opposed appearance social relationships. Functional...
Social functioning depends on the ability to attribute and reason about mental states of others – an known as theory mind (ToM). Research in this field is limited by use tasks which ceiling effects are ubiquitous, rendering them insensitive individual differences ToM instances subtle impairment. Here, we present data from a new task Short Story Task (SST) - intended improve upon many aspects existing measures. More specifically, SST was designed to: (a) assess full range without suffering...
Loneliness is a potent predictor of negative health outcomes, making it important to identify risk factors for loneliness. Though extant studies have identified characteristics associated with loneliness, less known about the cumulative and relative importance these factors, how their interaction may impact Here, 4,885 individuals ages 10–97 years from US completed three-item UCLA Survey on TestMyBrain.org. Using census data, we calculated population community household income participants'...
Theory of mind (ToM), the ability to attribute and reason about mental states others, is a strong determinant social functioning among individuals with schizophrenia. Identifying neural bases ToM their relationship may elucidate functionally relevant neurobiological targets for intervention. additionally account other phenomena that affect functioning, such as anhedonia (SocAnh). Given recent research in schizophrenia demonstrating improved response increased use cognitive skills, it...
Joint attention behaviors include initiating one's own and responding to another's bid for joint an object, person, or topic. abilities in autism are pervasively atypical, correlate with development of language social abilities, discriminate children from other developmental disorders. Despite the importance these behaviors, neural correlates individuals remain unclear. This paucity data is likely due inherent challenge acquiring during a real-time interaction. We used novel experimental...
In daily life, perceivers often need to predict and interpret the behavior of group agents, such as corporations governments. Although research has investigated how reason about individual members particular groups, less is known agents themselves. The present studies investigate understand by investigating extent which understanding 'mind' a whole shares important properties processes with minds individuals. Experiment 1 demonstrates that are sometimes willing attribute mental state even...
The ability to understand others' mental states carries profound consequences for and physical health, making efforts at validly reliably assessing state understanding (MSU) of utmost importance. However, the most widely used current NIMH-recommended task MSU - Reading Mind in Eyes Task (RMET) suffers from potential assessment issues, including reliance on a participant's vocabulary/intelligence use culturally biased stimuli. Here, we evaluate impact demographic sociocultural factors (age,...
Face emotion perception is important for social functioning and mental health. In addition to recognizing categories of face emotion, accurate relies on the ability detect subtle differences in intensity. The primary aim this study was examine participants' discriminate intensity facial emotions (emotion sensitivity: ES) three psychometrically matched ES tasks (fear, anger, or happiness), identify developmental changes sensitivity across lifespan. We predicted that increased age would be...
Social anhedonia (SA)—reduced drive for and pleasure from social interaction—is associated with social/emotional dysfunction risk psychopathology. However, our understanding of the factors that contribute to variation in SA remains limited. Here, we investigate epidemiology an international population-based sample more than 19,000 individuals who completed Revised Anhedonia Scale through TestMyBrain.org . We find exhibits considerable over life span is higher males versus females, people...
Theory-of-mind (ToM) ability is foundational for successful social relationships, and dependent on a neurocognitive system, which includes temporoparietal junction medial prefrontal cortex. Schizophrenia associated with ToM impairments, initial studies demonstrate similar, though more subtle deficits, in unaffected first-degree relatives, indicating that deficits are potential biomarker the disorder. Importantly, consequences of could create an additional vulnerability factor individuals at...
Theory of mind (ToM), the capacity to reason about others' mental states, is central healthy social development. Neural mechanisms supporting ToM may contribute individual differences in children's cognitive behavior. Employing a false belief functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm, we identified patterns neural activity and connectivity elicited by reasoning school-age children (N = 32, ages 9-13). Next, tested relations between these correlates everyday cognition. Several key nodes...
Healthy social relationships are linked to myriad positive physical and mental health outcomes, raising the question of how enhance relationship formation quality. Behavioral data suggest that theory mind (ToM) may be one such process. ToM is supported by a network brain regions including temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), medial prefrontal cortex precuneus (PC). However, little research has investigated supports healthy relationships. Here, we investigate whether recruitment when thinking...