Amygdala volume changes in posttraumatic stress disorder in a large case-controlled veterans group.

Research in my lab is focused on brain changes associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and other neuropsychiatric disorders. We apply several advanced methods for understanding brain function including functional MRI, structural MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, and genetic effects.

My research focuses on understanding how emotional events modulate cognitive processes in the human brain. We aim to identify brain regions that encode the emotional properties of sensory stimuli, and to show how these regions interact with neural systems supporting social cognition, executive control, and learning and memory. To achieve this goal, we use a variety of cognitive neuroscience techniques in human subject populations. These include psychophysiological monitoring, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), machine learning,  and behavioral studies in healthy adults as well as psychiatric patients. This integrative approach capitalizes on recent advances in the field and may lead to new insights into cognitive-emotional interactions in the brain.

My research career into neurobiology and mental health spans two distinct phases. The first includes doctoral training at the University of New Mexico in psychology and neurobiology with a major area of emphasis in behavioral neurobiology and two minor areas of emphasis in learning and memory and statistics and experimental design.  Doctoral training was subsequently supplemented with  postdoctoral study in neuropharmacology at Duke University focusing on brain monoamine systems.  For the five years subsequent, I continued exploring the mechanisms underlying receptor regulation of brain catecholamine systems within my laboratory at Columbia University.  Following a hiatus, I refocused my research interests away from the laboratory and into statistics and experimental design. This included supplementing a minor area of emphasis in statistics acquired during my doctoral training with extensive course work in biometry through the Division of Biometry within the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Duke University.  Using this background, I have continued to consult for the last two decades in the statistical design and analysis of a wide variety of research projects within the Division of Translational Neuroscience in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences as part of the Duke University School of Medicine; the numerous projects undertaken during this interval have included - but are not limited to - randomized clinical trials, epidemologic surveys, and a seemingly endless variety of quasi-experimental designs.  More recently, I have expanded my duties to include a position as Statistician for the Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center with the Durham VA Medical Center.