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NTTR Newsletters Text

March 2022

Welcome to our Quarterly Newsletter! 

 

Dear members, we are excited to announce our new quarterly newsletter! This will be an opportunity to connect with you all on a regular basis and share SIG updates, plans, opportunities, and accomplishments. 

 

Many exciting things happened over the past year. Here is a quick recap: We launched our new mentorship program, we contributed a special issue to the tBT, we started a lab highlight series, we hosted a successful diversity panel at the ABCT Convention, and we celebrated our students via the SIG Poster Competition and the brand new Emily Holmes Award.

 

Check out the sections below to learn more about our 2021 accomplishments as well as our plans for 2022!

 

Mentorship Program 

Our mentorship program pilot was a success! It ran between May and November 2021 and 32 SIG members participated. Based on our mid-and endpoint surveys, 85% of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied, and no one was dissatisfied, with their overall experience in the program (survey response rates were 72% and 41% for mid-and endpoint surveys respectively). Many thanks for your thoughtful feedback on the program!

Based on the feedback we received, the next round will be a full-year cycle that spans the typical academic year. It will run from September 2022 through August 2023 and signup will begin in the Spring. Given the interest in impromptu professional development or consultation meetings outside of the formal mentorship program, a list of mentors who made themselves available for this purpose will be posted on the NTTR website in the Spring and will be accessible in the members-only section of the website. With questions and suggestions regarding the mentorship program, email Maria Kryza-Lacombe at mkryzalacombe@gmail.com

Read more about the mentorship program here.

 

tBT Special Issue:

The October 2021 issue of the Behavior Therapist was a special issue hosted by the NTTR SIG, titled “Neurocognitive Therapies, Translational Research, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in 2021.” It features a special collection of articles sponsored by our SIG and the ABCT Translational Neuroscience Think Tank on neuroscience translation and diverse, inclusive, and equitable practices in conducting translational research.

We thank the Guest Editors Angela Fang and Katherine Young, and all the authors who contributed. The full issue is posted for your reading pleasure on the NTTR SIG website.

 

Lab Highlights:

The NTTR SIG website launched a new section highlighting labs focusing on translational research. Interested in being featured? Email valeriacordeiro97@gmail.com

The goal of this new section is to bring attention to labs focusing on clinical translational and provide a glimpse at what a day in the life of a lab member looks like. We hope that this will be a resource for students considering a career in translational science. 

The Emotional Mental Imagery Lab (EMIL) directed by Emily Holmes was the lab featured in our first Lab Highlight column! Check out the reflection of Sara Ahmed Pihlgren, a Research Assistant in the EMIL on what it’s like to be part of the EMIL team.


 

ABCT 2021 Recap

 

A listing of SIG members’ contributions to the ABCT 2021 convention can be found here.

 

SIG Meeting 

 

Our annual SIG meeting featured a discussion with Dr. Sophia Vinogradov who led an engaging and inspiring discussion on Addressing Barriers to Real World Clinical Translation of Neuroscience. We also announced the winners of the student poster competition and the new Emily Holmes award. Greg Siegle presented a Homage to Tim Beck

Slides presented at the SIG meeting are available here.


 

Award Competition Winners 

 

All submissions were of excellent quality! Many thanks to all who participated. 

Congratulations to all!

 

Emily Holmes Award Winners: 

Tied for First Place:

  • Kahini Mehta, B.A. (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Jennifer Mosley, B.S. (University of Washington)

Runner Up: 

  • Rebecca Krawczak, B.S. (University of Pittsburgh)

 

SIG Poster Competition Winners:

  • First Place: Laura Bragdon, PhD

Resting State Functional Connectivity Across Motivation-based Subgroups in Obsessive-compulsive Disorder

  • Second Place: Clare Beatty, BA

Neurobiological Sensitivity to Unpredictable Threat and Familial Risk for the Internalizing and Externalizing Spectra in Adolescents

  • Third Place: Kerry Kinney, PhD

Neural Reactivity to Error as a Predictor of Psychotherapy Response in Major Depression and Social Anxiety

 

Webinars:

In 2020 we started a webinar series to provide continuing education credits for medicine, psychology, and nursing. Huge thanks to our collaborators for all their excellent talks! A listing of the webinar history can be found here. All webinars have been recorded and are available on the members-only portion of our website. Enjoy!

Our next webinar is coming up soon: March 15, 2022: Josh Woolley MD, PhD (UCSF): Psychedelic therapies for psychiatric disorders: An introduction and early results.

Here is a list of previous webinar speakers. 

  • Emily Holmes, PhD DClinPsych

Mental Health Science: From a Curiosity About the "Imaginary World" to Applications in the "Real World"

  • Catherine Harmer, DPhil, MA, DipLATHE - University of Oxford

“Using Cognitive Neuroscience to Improve Future Treatment of Depression and Anxiety"

  • Leanne Williams, Ph.D. - Stanford University

“Neuroscience-Informed Precision Psychiatry​"

  • Dr. Judy Illes, University of British Columbia, Canada

"Neuroethics for the Neurosciences"

  • Dr. Jennifer Kubota, University of Delaware

"The Social Neuroscience of Prejudice"

  • Dr. Wolfgang Lutz, University of Trier

"Personalization of Psychological Treatments and Data-informed Clinical Practice"

 

We would love to feature your work!

Do you have an article you’ve recently published or are you working on a project you're excited about? We’d love to feature your work on Twitter and future issues in this newsletter. Here is a google form to tell us about your work: [need to create]. Of course, feel free to email us instead if that’s easier for you (nttrsig@gmail.com). Looking forward to highlighting your work!

July 2022

Dear members, we are excited to share the second issue of our newsletter with you all! Here, we announce the newly elected executive committee of the NTTR SIG, recognize the members of the current executive committee, provide updates on the next round of the membership program, share another lab highlight, and acknowledge the accomplishments of some of our SIG members.

 

We hope that this newsletter continues to be a quick and easy way for everyone to stay up to date with what the SIG is up to. If you would like to contribute to the next issue by providing work or accomplishments for us to highlight, please fill out this form!

Incoming Executive Committee:

Thank you to everyone that voted in our SIG elections! We are thrilled to announce our new NTTR SIG leadership team for the 2022-2025 term:

 

Chair:

  • Marlene Strege

Treasurer:

  • Mary Woody

Membership Chair:

  • Maria Kryza-Lacombe

Rep-at-Large and Outreach Chair:

  • Kean Hsu

Student Rep:

  • Abby Szkutak

Social Media Manager:

  • Valeria Cordeiro

Website Manager:

  • Marvin Yan

 

We look forward to connecting with everyone during this year's ABCT convention in New York!

Current Executive Commitee:

We want to also recognize the current executive committee that has served from 2019-2022:

Chair:

  • Angela Fang

Membership/Treasury Chair:

  • Andrew Peckham

Representative-at-Large:

  • Ryan Jane Jacoby

Student Rep:

  • Maria Kryza-Lacombe

Senior Advisor To The Chair:

  • Greg Siegle

Website/Social Media Volunteers:

  • Valeria Cordeiro

  • Marvin Yan

Mentorship Program:

We are excited to bring back the mentorship program for its second year! This cycle will run from September 2022 through August 2023. Signup for both mentors and mentees is now open until July 31st at this link. Mentorship pairings will be announced in August. To learn more about the program, including its history and aims, click here.

 

Additionally, given the interest in impromptu professional development or consultation meetings outside of the formal mentorship program, a list of mentors who made themselves available for this purpose has been posted on the NTTR website in the members-only section of the website here. The list of mentors will be updated throughout July and August. With questions and suggestions regarding the mentorship program, email Maria Kryza-Lacombe at mkryzalacombe@gmail.com.

Webinars:

On June 20th we hosted a webinar featuring Dr. Hideki Ohira from Nagoya University. His talk, "Affective decision-making based on interoceptive predictive processing: Implications for clinical issues," focused on how computational models describing dynamics of predictive processing of interoception can be used to develop new psychological therapies. Huge thanks to Dr. Ohira and for everyone who attended the webinar! This webinar, and all past webinars have been recorded and are available on the members-only portion of our website. As a reminder, these webinars provide continuing education credits for medicine, psychology, and nursing (instructions on the webinar recordings portion of our website).

Lab Highlight:

Our newest lab highlight features the Pediatric Emotion Regulation Lab (PERL), directed by Dr. Amy Roy! Check out the interview with Margaret Benda, a graduate student in the PERL, on projects that they're excited about, an explanation of how their work fits into the translational neuroscience framework, and a peek into a typical day in the lab. The full interview can be found on our website here!

 

The goal of this new section is to bring attention to labs focusing on translational neuroscience and provide a glimpse at what a day in the life of a lab member looks like. We hope that this will be a resource for students considering a career in translational science. Interested in being featured? Email valeriacordeiro97@gmail.com.

SIG Member Spotlight:

Congratulations to Valeria Cordeiro on receiving the Presidential Graduate Research Fellowship at San Diego State University (SDSU)! The university identified Valeria as a student with outstanding potential for advancement in research. Valeria will be starting a master's program in psychology at SDSU this fall under the mentorship of Dr. Jillian Lee Wiggins. Good luck Valeria!

 

Congratulations also to Marvin Yan for publishing his first-author paper in SCAN on the neural correlates of attachment in adolescents! Using a frustrative non-reward paradigm, he showed that those with avoidant vs. anxious attachment styles demonstrated differing patterns of neural activity when being repeatedly denied a reward. Congrats Marvin! You can read his paper here.

Do you have an article you’ve recently published or are you working on a project you're excited about?

 

We’d love to feature your work on Twitter and in future issues of this newsletter.

 

Complete this form or feel free to email us at nttrsig@gmail.com

 

Looking forward to highlighting your work!

How To Access Members-Only Portion of Website:

To view past webinar recordings, the list of mentors available for impromptu consultation, or any other areas of our website that is for members only, please sign up for an account on our website by clicking "Log In" then "Sign up" in the upper right corner of our website (instructions here). Once it is confirmed that you have an active membership to the NTTR SIG, you will receive an email approving your account on our website (this process takes about a week or less). If you have any questions about this process, please reach out to nttrsig@gmail.com!

November 2022

Dear members, we are excited to share the third issue of our
newsletter with you all! Here, we acknowledge our newly elected executive committee of the NTTR SIG, provide information for the incoming ABCT 2022 including events of interest such as the 15th anniversary of the SIG, and give updates on the next round of the membership program. We hope that this newsletter continues to be a quick and easy way for everyone to stay up to date with what the SIG is up to. If you would like to contribute to the next issue by providing work or accomplishments for us to highlight, please fill out this form!

 

Why should you renew your NTTR SIG membership?

  • We are a collection of scientists committed to the mission of translating cognitive and affective neuroscience research in three key areas to improve the conceptualization and effectiveness of therapeutic interventions.

 

  • We help train clinical neuroscience researchers to think more deeply about the real-world applications of basic science to clinical practice and educate clinicians about how neuroscience can inform their therapeutic work through resource pages on our website.

 

 

  • We promote diversity in clinical neuroscience through webinars and social media outreach.

 

  • But we can’t achieve these goals unless we have YOU as a member!

Benefits of membership:

  • The NTTR listserv provides a forum for members to discuss issues related to translational research and clinical neuroscience, as well as disseminate job opportunities.

 

  • We have compiled a repository of neuroscience research articles that may serve as useful psychoeducation in clinical practice.

 

  • Our Mentorship program pairs SIG members and affiliates for one-on-one professional development mentoring (e.g., career transition advice, grant writing support, research design questions).

 

  • Your dues help support an annual student poster competition at the ABCT convention, our SIG awards program, honorarium for NTTR research webinar presenters, and our website with dissemination materials.

 

 

  • As a member, you can also participate in SIG sponsored ABCT events such as symposium submissions and the SIG student poster competition.

 

  • Future benefits include participation in mini-conferences and SIG-initiated manuscript submissions.

Meet the new Executive Committee!

Chair: Marlene Strege

Brief introduction about yourself: I conduct translational neuroscience research as a postdoctoral

research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. I am passionate about studying the lifelong recovery

process in depression, spanning the patient's experiences with symptomatology and functional impairments to neurobiological underpinnings of illness chronicity and relapse/recurrence risk. I hope to use this research to inform how we approach recovery in depression.

What is your role in the SIG? I am the incoming SIG president but have been working with SIG leadership for several years as part of ABCT's Neuroscience Think Tank.

 

Treasurer: Mary Woody

Brief introduction about yourself: I am an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and practicing licensed psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh who is passionate about the clinical application of neuroscience. My multidisciplinary program of research focuses on the use of neuroimaging (EEG, fMRI), psychophysiology (pupillometry, autonomic nervous system activity), and behavior (facial affect, eye tracking) to identify and modify mechanisms underlying the development of depression and other internalizing disorders in both adolescents and adults.

What is your role in the SIG? Member since 2013 and the current Treasurer Elect.

 

 

Membership Chair: Maria Kryza-Lacombe

Brief introduction about yourself: I’m currently a postdoctoral fellow in Neuropsychology/Geropsychology at the Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Centers (MIRECC) program at the San Francisco VA and the Late Life Depression Program at UC San Francisco.

What is your role in the SIG? I have been the NTTR SIG Student Representative for the past three years and look forward to continuing to serve as the SIG’s Membership Chair and focusing on the needs of the SIG membership at large.

 

 

Rep-at-Large and Outreach Chair: Kean Hsu

Brief introduction about yourself: I'm an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at National University of Singapore. My research investigates how basic cognitive processes (e.g., attention, executive functioning) impact the etiology and exacerbate symptom severity of depression and anxiety.

What is your role in the SIG? As the NTTR SIG Rep-at-Large and Outreach Chair, I work closely with the SIG Chair, the Social Media Manager, and the rest of the Executive Committee to find opportunities to disseminate our work both within ABCT and to the general public. My hope is that such efforts will not only enrich the already-exciting work being conducted by our members through new collaborations and increased interest in this work, but also facilitate improved translation of our work to community settings and recruit other like-minded researchers to ABCT and this SIG.

 

 

Student Rep: Abby Szkutak

Brief introduction about yourself: My name is Abby Szkutak and I am currently a 2nd year PhD student in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University working with Dr. Douglas Mennin.

What is your role in the SIG? I am so excited to be the newly appointed Student Representative for the SIG. Something I love about neurocognitive and translational research is that it's multidisciplinary and collaborative -- It's all about teamwork!

 

 

Social Media Manager: Valeria Cordeiro

Brief introduction about yourself: I am currently in my first year of the SDSU Psychology Masters program, I am working for the Translational Emotion Neuroscience and Development Laboratory where we aim to understand emotions in young children and how they relate to the brain using fMRI.

What is your role in the SIG? I started volunteering for the SIG in 2019 by helping out with the website and I am happy that this year I get to manage the social media and interact with future and current members.

 

 

Website Manager: Marvin Yan

Brief introduction about yourself: I'm currently a PhD student in the Clinical Science & Psychopathology Research Program at the University of Minnesota. I'm so excited to learn more about neuromodulation during my time as a PhD student. I think it's innovative and has the potential to help those with treatment resistant depression! What is your role in the SIG? I have been the informal website manager for the last two years and will be the official website manager for this next term.

ABCT 2022:

The NTTR endorses Steven Safren for ABCT president

Steve has long cared about the SIG’s primary goal of bringing neuroscience to clinics. He currently has an R01 on depression effects on neuroimmune targets. He has emphasized, in print, the importance of clinically assessing neurocognitive impairment in HIV, and has advocated for the use of neuroscience to link ADHD and substance use disorders.

 

Steve notes, “As a specialist in health behavior change, someone who has scaled up behavioral medicine services including work at the MGH neuro-ICU, and having developed treatments for ADHD to compensate for neurocognitive difficulties, I fully appreciate the role of basic cognitive and behavioral neuroscience in the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of mental health and other behavioral health problems. As ABCT President, I am also interested in working on ways in which the SIGs, including this one, can contribute to the conference content in a more significant manner to enhance the reach of the organization.”

ABCT Events of Interest:

  • SIG business meeting now held on Friday 11/18 12-1:30pm, Skylobby 16th Floor

 

  • The SIG is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year!! In honor of this occasion we will have a celebratory cake during the Friday Night Expo which will take place between 6:30 and 8:30pm EST on 11/18. We hope you stop by to visit the poster competition presentations and share some SIG anniversary cake!

  • Sat, Nov 19

    • Symposium 80 - Picky Eating, Not Just for Kids: Presentation and Treatment of Avoidant/restrictive Food Intake in Transition Age Youth and Young Adults

    • Jennifer J. Thomas, Ph.D., Kendra Becker, Ph.D.

  • Sat, Nov 19

    • Symposium 97 - Novel approaches for the study of repetitive negative thinking

      • Peter F. Hitchcock, Ph.D.; Sarah C. Dolan, M.A.; Leigh C. Brosof, M.S.; Cassondra Lyman, B.S., B.A.

  • Sun, Nov 20

    • Symposium 105: Attentional processing of affective stimuli and psychopathology: infancy to adulthood

    • Brandon Gibb, PhD; Brady Nelson, PhD; Mary McNamara, MA; Christopher Beevers, PhD; Discussant: Jutta Joorman, PhD

Student Poster competition:

Are Individual Differences in Media Multitasking Habits Associated with Changes in Brain Activation: An ERP Investigation of Multitasking and Cognitive Control

Morgan Middlebrooks, Wesley Vaught, & Matt Judah

University of Arkansas

 

The Absence of Green Space (Gray Space) on Default Mode Network-Amygdala Connectivity

Michael T. Liuzzi, M.A. , Julia C. Harris, M.A., Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, Ph.D., Christine L. Larson, Ph.D., Krista M. Lisdahl, Ph.D.

Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Department of Preventative Medicine, Keck School of Medicine

University of Southern California, Los Angeles

 

Does Acute Resting-State Connectivity of the BNST Prospectively Predict PTSD in Black Adults?

Kevin Petranu, Kate Webb, Carissa Tomas, Ashley Huggins, Jacklynn Fitzgerald, Tara Miskovich, Jessica Krukowski, Terri deRoon-Cassini, & Christine Larson

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Mclean Hospital

Medical College of Wisconsin

Duke University

Marquette University

 

The role of Peritraumatic Dissociation in the Impact of Racial Discrimination on PTSD Development

Farah Harb, B.S., Claire Bird, Ph.D., Kate Webb, Ph.D., Lucas Torres, Ph.D., Terri deRoon-Cassini, Ph.D., Christine L. Larson, Ph.D.

Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Baylor Scott and White Research Institute

McLean Hospital

Department of Psychology, Marquette University

Department of Trauma and Surgery, Medical College of Wisconsin

 

Neural Response to Monetary and Social Rewards and Familial Risk for Psychopathology in Adolescents

Clare C. Beatty, B.A., Greg Hajcak, Ph.D., & Brady D. Nelson, Ph.D.

Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University

Neuroplasticity Markers and CLinical Features of Compulsive Behaviors: The Unique Impact of Eating Disorders

Rebecca Rohac, Rebecca Price

Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

 

Distinguishing Neural Correlates of Emotion Processing and Self-Referential Processing in Social Anxiety Disorder and Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Emily Iannazzi, Gillian Grennan, Yuchen Zhao, Angela Fang

University of Washington, Department of Psychology

 

Neural and Electrodermal Responses During Vicarious Extinction Learning in Socially Anxious Individuals

Jessica Crane, Gillian Grennan, Serenity Greene, Emily Iannazzi, Jennifer Mosley, & Angela Fang

University of Washington, Department of Psychology

 

Development and validation of a race-balanced fMRI affective number Stroop task in trauma-exposed adults with dissociative symptoms

Rebecca Krawczak, Negar Fani, Greg J Siegle

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Emory University School of Medicine

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

 

An Application of the Suicide Ideation-to-Action Framework to Brain Gray Matter Volumes

Matthew Thompson, Marjan Ghahramanlou-Holloway, Mikela Murphy, Chelsie Benca-Bachman, Rohan Palmer, Joshua Gray

Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Uniformed Services University

Behavioral Genetics of Addiction Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Emory

University

Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Uniformed Services University

Mentorship program:

Our new year-long cycle of the mentorship program is off to a great start and will run through August 2023! We will start recruiting for our next cycle in Spring 2023. If you need support sooner than that, a number of mentors have made themselves available for short term support outside the formal year-long mentorship program and are listed on our mentor profile page.

 

Information about all aspects of the NTTR SIG’s mentorship program is available on the website: https://www.neurocognitive-therapies.com/mentorship-program

Reach out to Maria Kryza-Lacombe with any questions or suggestions for the mentorship program at mkryzalacombe@gmail.com.

July 22
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