Author Archives: samweiss

Schizophrenia (SZ) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) sharing overlapping symptoms have a long history of diagnostic confusion. It is unclear what their differences at a brain level are. Here, we propose a multimodality fusion classification approach to investigate their divergence in brain function and structure.

Stress is a risk factor in the development and maintenance of psychopathology, particularly anxiety. Despite theory suggesting differences in stress responsivity may explain heterogeneity in anxiety, findings remain contradictory. This may be due to failure to account for individuals’ neurobiological states and outdated methodologic analyses which confound conceptually and biologically...

To examine whether mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential amplitude, which is deficient in schizophrenia, is reduced in young people with the CHR-P syndrome and associated with outcomes, accounting for effects of antipsychotic medication use.

In this work, we focus on explicitly nonlinear relationships in functional networks. We introduce a technique using normalized mutual information (NMI) that calculates the nonlinear relationship between different brain regions. We demonstrate our proposed approach using simulated data and then apply it to a dataset previously studied by Damaraju et...

The goal of this special section is to understand the mechanisms by which stress affects cognitive and emotional functioning, and the neural basis of these effects. This special section was inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic and its far-reaching effects on peoples’ lives.

High-quality parental communication supports and facilitates psychological adjustment to illness for both parents and children, but many parents do not have timely access to these important mental health services. In this project we developed and tested a novel web-based, psychosocial intervention designed to facilitate parental communication about cancer.

This study tested how threat-processing in hippocampus, a brain structure critical for forming memories of situations that are dangerous and safe, relates to development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Using brain-imaging techniques coupled with laboratory and survey-based tests for trauma, the researchers found that individuals who showed less activity in...

This paper shows that activation of neuroimmune signaling can promote increases in alcohol drinking.

This study finds marked inter-individual variability in the locations of functional cortical areas, making standardized atlas-based targeting unreliable. This report urges the field to adopt functional mapping in individuals before targeting, which should help researchers obtain reproducible data without erroneously pooling multiple functional areas.

We explored how adolescents, their parents, school professionals, and hospital professionals viewed school as it positively or negatively influences adolescent mental health. Findings underscore the need for school-based approaches to address the unique academic, social, and emotional needs of students with suicide-related risk that complement the supports and services provided...