Rebecca Price, PhD

“Synergistic, Bio-behavioral Interventions to Leverage Neuroplasticity Windows and Improve Emotional Disorders”

Neural and cognitive processing patterns have been found to distinguish groups of individuals with emotional disorders (e.g., anxiety, depression) from healthy samples, but translating such findings into true advances in clinical care remains a challenge. Research in psychiatry increasingly emphasizes cross-cutting biopsychosocial factors that are heterogeneous within, and across, discrete psychiatric diagnoses. The promise of this work is that it will generate a process-based framework to improve psychiatric assessment and treatment. In this talk, I will discuss neurocognitive factors that may contribute to anxiety and depression across diagnoses, with a focus on impairments in cognitive flexibility and neuroplasticity. I will discuss ongoing attempts to translate such findings into mechanistic treatment strategies and personalized treatment prescriptions capable of remediating neurocognitive disruptions and alleviating symptoms. Specific areas of focus within this work include: 1) characterizing neurocognitive processing patterns in anxiety and depression through behavioral information processing tasks and fMRI; 2) the targeted modification of cognitive processing mechanisms through computer-based training; and 3) leveraging biological treatments (neuromodulation, intravenous ketamine) to acutely enhance neuroplasticity and promote the uptake of adaptive learning.

Rebecca B. Price, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She completed undergraduate studies in cognitive science at Stanford University and a PhD in Clinical Psychology at Rutgers University. She has been the recipient of several awards including an NIMH Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists (NIMH BRAINS) R01, a “Rising Star” award by the Association for Psychological Science, and the University of Pittsburgh Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award. Dr. Price’s research interests center on the role of neurocognitive factors and neuroplasticity in the etiology, course, and treatment of depression, anxiety, compulsive behaviors, and suicidality. She has recently focused on developing novel synergistic treatment strategies to target these features by coupling computer-based interventions with biological interventions (e.g., non-invasive neuromodulation; intravenous ketamine). Dr. Price is particularly grateful for her three greatest gifts—her husband Andy and their two daughters.

Reading List: 

• A novel, brief, fully automated intervention to extend the antidepressant effect of a single ketamine infusion: A randomized clinical trial
• International pooled patient-level meta-analysis of ketamine infusion for depression: In search of clinical moderators
• Experimental manipulation of the orbitofrontal cortex impacts short-term markers of human compulsive behavior: A Theta Burst Stimulation study
• Neuroplasticity in cognitive and psychological mechanisms of depression: An integrative model
• Neural connectivity subtypes predict discrete attentional bias profiles among heterogeneous anxiety patients