Supervising Faculty: Danella Hafeman, MD PhD
Contact: Dr. Hafeman, hafemand@upmc.edu
Area of Research: Pediatric Mood Disorders, Mindfulness Interventions, Neuroimaging
Description of Research: We focus on using precision clinical and brain measures to better understand risk and resilience, so that we can develop interventions for adolescents and young adults with and at-risk for mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder. Other methods that we utilize include mobile sensing, ecological momentary assessment, polygenic risk scores, and MRI neurofeedback to provide insight into the risk for and course of mood disorders. We are particularly interested in understanding the neural and behavioral mechanisms of mindfulness interventions to target mood lability in youth at risk for mood disorders, which we are testing in the Brain, Emotions, and Mind-wandering (BEAM Study). We aim to conduct research that is relevant to patients with and at risk for mood disorders, as well as informed directly by clinical experience.
Duties of Students:
- Assist with recruitment activities
- Data collection
- Data entry
- Data quality control, processing, and analysis
- Clinical observation of assessments and/or intervention groups, tailored according to student interest
- Participation in all relevant lab meetings, including a weekly lab student research meeting
- Attending and actively participating in monthly journal clubs and presenting 1-2 times over the year
- Completion of an individual research project with the opportunity to present at the Department of Psychiatry Research Day in the Spring
Requirements:
- Overall GPA of 3.0 or higher
- 12 credits of Psychology (including current term)
- STAT 0200/1000/1100 Statistics
- PSY 0036 Research Methods Lecture
- PSY 0037 Research Methods Lab
- 2 semester commitment required
Terms offered: Fall, Spring
Number of Students: 2