My research focuses on using neuroimaging to understand risk for psychiatric and neurodegenerative disease.

By the time conditions such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease are clinically diagnosed, much of the damage in the brain is already done. My group focuses on understanding mechanisms of risk, i.e. investigating how factors such as particular genes change brain structure and function before people are suffering from the symptoms of disease. We hope that, when neuroprotective agents become available, we will be able to identify individuals in whom these agents will be most effective.