Biography & Research:
For over two decades, my research has focused on the development and application of PET imaging methods to understand functional neuroanatomic and monoaminergic mechanisms associated with vulnerability to cognitive decline in late life, as well as to understand the mechanisms underlying the mood and cognitive responses to drug and brain stimulation treatment. In addition to the role of neuroimaging as a bridge between basic and clinical neuroscience, I appreciated early in my career that neuroimaging represents an unique opportunity to understand the earliest neurobiological changes that occur in cognitive and mood disorders in late life and to identify predictors of treatment response to infom the development of more effective treatments for mood and cognitive disorders. While the majority of this work has focused on geriatric depression, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, the methods developed have been applied to other neuropsychiatric disorders including Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and traumatic brain injury