Research Abstract:
My program of research is focused on understanding the interplay among cognition, emotion, and brain function to better understand the deficits in behavior and cognition found in a range of populations. These include neuropsychological syndromes such as schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's, as well as an additional line of research in healthy older and younger adults. There are several major themes guiding my work. One theme has been the contribution that cognitive control deficits make to memory, thought and language disturbances in schizophrenia. By cognitive control I mean the collection of processes involved in guiding behavior in accordance with internal as well as external goals. A second theme has been to determine the neurobiological mechanisms (i.e., prefrontal cortex and dopamine deficits) that may underlie such cognitive control deficits. A third focus is the search to understand the relationship between cognitive and emotional deficits in disorders such as schizophrenia. In trying to address these issues, my work has involved both basic research designed to understand how cognitive and emotional systems normally work and clinical research focused on how and why cognitive and emotional processing can go awry.
Selected Publications:
Anticevic A, Repovs G and Barch DM. Resisting emotional interference: Brain regions facilitating working memory performance during emotional distraction. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience. (In Press).
MacDonald AW, Thermenos HW, Barch DM and Seidman LJ. Imaging genetic liability to schizophrenia: Systematic review of fMRI studies of patient’s non-psychotic relatives. Schizophrenia Bulletin 2008 doi:10.1093/schbul/sbn053.
Braver TS, Paxton JL, Locke HS and Barch DM. Flexible neural mechanisms of cognitive control within human prefrontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2009 106: 7351-7356.
Sheline YI, Barch DM, Rundle M and Mintun M. The default mode network and self-referential processes in depression. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2009 106: 1942-1947.
Delawalla Z, Barch DM and Csernansk, JC. Context processing and prefrontal function in non-psychotic siblings of individuals with schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry 2008 63:490-497.
Last Updated: 08/11/2009 |