Welcome to the Spectrum of Psychopathology and Affective Neuroscience Lab at Virginia Tech!
What We Do
We use transdiagnostic, dimensional, and neuroscience-informed approaches to study the etiology, mechanisms, and development of multiple forms of mental disorder.
Comorbidity
Comorbidity (co-occurrence) among mental disorders is common and poses significant challenges for mental health research and treatment. To address this problem, our lab studies the overlap and dimensionality among mental disorder symptoms (i.e., comorbidity and severity) to identify common features of psychopathology across disorder categories.
Our Methods
To do this, we combine clinical (e.g., diagnostic interview and questionnaire), behavioral (e.g., neurocognitive, affective, personality), and multi-modal neuroimaging (e.g., structural and functional MRI) methods with hierarchical and structural equation modeling statistical techniques to study transdiagnostic risk markers of psychopathology at multiple levels of analysis in adolescent and adult populations.
Our Goal
Ultimately, we aim to provide novel insights on transdiagnostic targets for interventions to improve outcomes for individuals whose symptoms span traditional diagnostic boundaries.