Research
Neurogenetic disorders; neurobehavioral biomarkers of serious mental illness
Appointments
- Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Psychology, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior Brain Research Institute
- Integrative Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART)
- Director, Center for the Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States (CAPPS)
Biography
Her research aims to understand genetic and neurobiological risk factors for the development of early-onset neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr. Bearden’s work examines these questions through two complementary lines of research:
1) The investigation of early biomarkers that predict disease risk and trajectory in at-risk populations; and
2) Translational approaches to understanding disrupted brain circuitry in highly penetrant genetic subtypes (e.g, 22q11.2 microdeletions)
Publications
- Boen, R, Villalón-Reina, JE, Kushan, L, O'Hora, KP, Fung, H, Parker, N et al.. Gene dosage effects of 22q11.2 copy number variants on in-vivo measures of white matter axonal density and dispersion. bioRxiv. 2025; :. doi: 10.1101/2025.05.29.656839. PubMed PMID:40501680 PubMed Central PMC12154836.
- Nerland, S, Barth, C, Jørgensen, KN, Wortinger, LA, Castro-Fornieles, J, Díaz-Caneja, CM et al.. Cerebral cortical alterations in adolescent early-onset psychosis: a surface-based morphometry mega-analysis. medRxiv. 2025; :. doi: 10.1101/2025.05.24.25328176. PubMed PMID:40492081 PubMed Central PMC12148263.
- Mathalon, DH, Nicholas, S, Roach, BJ, Billah, T, Lavoie, S, Whitford, T et al.. The electroencephalography protocol for the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Schizophrenia Program: Reliability and stability of measures. Schizophrenia (Heidelb). 2025;11 (1):85. doi: 10.1038/s41537-025-00622-0. PubMed PMID:40480970 PubMed Central PMC12144291.
- Amir, CM, Ghahremani, DG, Chang, SE, Cooper, ZD, Bearden, CE. Altered neurobehavioral reward response predicts psychotic-like experiences in youth exposed to cannabis prenatally. Biol Psychiatry. 2025; :. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2025.05.019. PubMed PMID:40466988 .
- Wigman, JTW, Ching, AE, Chung, Y, Eichi, HR, Lane, E, Langholm, C et al.. Digital health technologies in the accelerating medicines Partnership® Schizophrenia Program. Schizophrenia (Heidelb). 2025;11 (1):83. doi: 10.1038/s41537-025-00599-w. PubMed PMID:40461469 PubMed Central PMC12134270.