Zald Affective Neuroscience Lab at Vanderbilt University

05/21/2019

Congratulations to Kendra Hinton for completing her dissertation defense!

03/27/2019

Don't forget to come out and support our very own Dr. David Zald tonight at 8pm at the Belcourt!

On March 27th as part of Science on Screen 2019, there will be a post-screening discussion and demonstration on the science of fear from David Zald, Cornelius Vanderbilt professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University and director of Vanderbilt's Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. After the film, a lucky audience member will be hooked up to psychophysiological recording equipment, which will monitor their body’s reaction to fear (during a short, specially selected clip), followed by a live analysis of the results by Dr. Zald.

A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.

03/18/2019

Check out Fran's presentation tomorrow!

Clinical Science Brown Bag Series
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
12:10-1:00 pm
Wilson Hall 316

Francisco Calvache-Meyer
Department of Psychology (Zald/Tomarken Lab)
Vanderbilt University
"Higher-order psychopathology associations with fMRI reward processing: a brain-wide, voxel-wise SEM proof of concept study"

Recent work suggests the high comorbidity across psychiatric disorders can be modeled using continuous transdiagnostic dimensions, including a general psychopathology factor that reflects non-specific vulnerability to all symptom dimensions, and specific factors for externalizing and internalizing syndromes. These higher-order psychopathology factors offer an advantage over traditional case-controlled approaches by allowing us to identify neural correlates associated with broader vulnerabilities to psychopathology while accounting for the full structure of psychopathology, which is not possible in case-controlled designs. However, the flip side of this promise is that it is difficult to test for associations between latent variables and brain measures in a voxel-wise fashion, especially in larger samples with issues such as non-independence.

In this talk, I will present a proof of concept study in which I sought to identify whether higher-order psychopathology factors were associated with activation in the reward anticipation and reward attainment stages of the Monetary Incentive Delay task using a novel voxel-wise SEM approach. I will briefly introduce and discuss my voxel-wise SEM approach, which leveraged tools such as Neuropointillist and Mplus to test for associations between activation in voxels across the brain and higher-order psychopathology, while addressing non-independence issues introduced by twinness in our sample (Tennessee Twin Study Wave 2, N = 326). I will then discuss our findings and possible future directions.

This talk is a follow-up to my talk from last year; it is the same dataset, although being analyzed using a different approach and more in depth. This talk will also serve as an open defense for my Master’s thesis.

03/16/2019

Don't forget about Vanderbilt Brain Institute's Brain Blast event today! There's even free parking! See their flyer and website for more information:

https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/brain-institute/

03/11/2019

Dr. Zald discusses The Science of Fear!

On March 27th as part of Science on Screen 2019, there will be a post-screening discussion and demonstration on the science of fear from David Zald, Cornelius Vanderbilt professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University and director of Vanderbilt's Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. After the film, a lucky audience member will be hooked up to psychophysiological recording equipment, which will monitor their body’s reaction to fear (during a short, specially selected clip), followed by a live analysis of the results by Dr. Zald.

A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.

03/04/2019

The Vanderbilt Brain Institute will be hosting their annual Brain Blast on Saturday, March 16th, 2019 10am-2pm. See their flyer and website for more information. This is a great event for children kindergarten-8th grade and their families!

https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/brain-institute/

01/16/2019

We are so proud of Chris Smith for finding a wonderful career, though we will greatly miss him in the lab! Chris will be starting a new position as Postdoctoral Affairs Program Manager in the Graduate School at NC State University soon. We know he will be fantastic at helping postdoctoral fellows in their career and professional development. Best wishes!

01/14/2019

Don't forget today:
Monday, Jan. 14, 2019
4:10-5:10 p.m., Room 241, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center/One Magnolia Circle Building

Kennedy Center Lectures on Development & Developmental Disabilities
2019 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Commemorative Lecture

Assistant Secretary Lance Robertson, Administrator and Assistant Secretary for Aging, Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services: https://acl.gov/about-acl/organization/leadership

This lecture is free and open to the public

Lance Robertson Administrator and Assistant Secretary for Aging Lance Robertson was appointed to serve as Assistant Secretary for Aging and ACL's Administrator on August 11, 2017. His vision for ACL focuses on five pillars: supporting families and caregivers, protecting rights and preventing abuse,....

01/10/2019

Happy Birthday to our postdoc, Chris Smith!

01/10/2019

Check out this paper from Christopher Smith investigating relationships between dopamine transporter availability and impulsivity and novelty seeking!

Article

01/10/2019

Congratulations to one of our former lab members, Jaime Castrellon, for his recent publication in the Journal of Neuroscience, and for having his article featured on the cover!

Check out the article here: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/39/2/321

Here is a link to the full journal, including the cover:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/39/2.cover-expansion

Jaime is currently a graduate student in the Cognitive Neuroscience area of the Psychology & Neuroscience Department working with Gregory Samanez-Larkin at Duke University. For more information about Greg's lab and their research, see his webpage at: https://www.mcablab.science/gregoryrsl/

Some people are more willing to make immediate, risky, or costly reward-focused choices than others, which has been hypothesized to be associated with individual differences in dopamine (DA) function. In two studies using PET imaging, one empirical (Study 1: N = 144 males and females across 3 sample...

08/06/2018

Two of our undergraduate RAs presented on August 2, 2018 at the Vanderbilt Summer Science Academy (VSSA) 16th Annual Student Research Symposium

Laura Ch**es (not pictured) presented research from our lab titled: “Low Family Income during Childhood is Predictive of Global Brain Development in Males but not Females”

Mae Wimbiscus (pictured below) presented research from work in Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel's lab. Her poster was titled: “Quantification of astrocytes and oligodendrocytes in the brains of seven carnivoran species”

Check out this link for the brochure listing all participants: https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/vssa/vssa-16th-annual-student-research-symposium