>> [Background music] In
the field of psychology,
there are many sub-specialties
that someone can go into.
One of those is biological
psychology,
and that really is the focus of
how biological systems interact
with an individual's behavior
and cognitive functioning
and performance in
their day-to-day life.
Some of those might
include physiology,
the way an individual's
hormonal make-up is,
their genetic make-up,
different things,
all the way down to
the level of the brain.
So within the field
of neuropsychology,
there are also sub-specialties
that kind of keep breaking down.
In my job at OHSU, I work both
clinically and in research.
As a clinician, I am a
Pediatric Neuropsychologist.
And I see kids ranging in age
from early childhood, ages 4, 5,
6, all the way up
into early adulthood.
My main role is to do
neuropsychological assessments
of children that have a variety
of different neurological
types of issues.
So that can be anything
from traumatic brain injury
to epilepsy, all the way down to
learning disabilities and ADHD.
In the last 15 years,
there have been many,
many technological advances
that have helped the field
of biological psychology
and neuroscience in general.
So one of those techniques
is the field of neuroimaging,
which has exploded
over the past 15 years,
allowing us for the first time
ever to really be able to look
into the brains of
healthy, young individuals,
and see what is happening
at a functional level,
a structural level, and even
a microstructural level.
So the majority of my time is
spent running the developmental
brain imaging laboratory
at OHSU.
The reason that I chose
the work that I'm doing,
and what excites me the most
about it is really the ability
to potentially identify
risk features in the brain,
well before an individual has
to experience adverse
consequences later in life.
So being able to look at these
young children and say you're
at risk, and maybe we can do
something that would prevent you
from ever going on to develop
depression, or ever going
on to have a substance
use disorder.
So because the adolescent brain
is so actively developing,
that makes it really vulnerable
to a host of different things.
One of those things is
adolescent substance use.
Most commonly used during
adolescence are alcohol
and marijuana, and both of
those are things have been shown
to impact the adolescent
brain differently
than other stages
of development.
So one of the things
that we study
in adolescence is the
emergence of different types
of substance use disorders.
Most of the time, you don't
think of use disorders
as common in adolescence.
One of the things we do
see with a high level
of regularity is binge drinking.
So when an individual
goes out and consumes four
or more beverages in an
evening, and we have shown
that that is actually neurotoxic
to the developing
adolescent brain.
We can see changes in the
brain that occur as a result
of that drinking, when
there were no differences
in the brain before.
The benefit of longitudinal
studies allow us
to disentangle some of those
chicken-or-the-egg types
of questions.
So some of the studies that
I've been involved in look
at marijuana use and how it
affects adolescent behavior
and cognition.
We have had adolescents
maintain abstinence for 30 days,
by routinely checking
their levels of use.
And even after 30 days
of use, and heavy using,
marijuana users, we tend to
see decrements in attention,
and what we call
executive skills.
Problem solving, planning, those
sorts of things that are really,
really necessary for
adolescents to function
in their day-to-day environment.
So in my research, one of
the major contributions
that we have made
is identifying some
of the neurobiological
features associated
with a family history
of alcoholism.
So we know that a family history
of alcoholism increases an
individual's risk for going
on to develop an alcohol
use disorder themselves.
For the first time, really
ever, we have been able
to identify replicable features
in the brains of individuals
who have that risk feature,
but have never used
alcohol themselves.
So if we know that an
individual is at risk,
based on a certain
characteristic in their brain,
and we can identify treatment
strategies that target
that characteristic, again,
that will prevent some
of the mental illness from
ever occurring in our society.
All of this holds implications
for improving outcomes related
to human disease, and
overall quality of life.
So it takes quite
a bit of training
to become a neuropsychologist.
I have a PhD in Clinical
Psychology, at a program
where there was emphasis
specifically
in biological psychology
and neuropsychology.
After that training
and graduate school,
in order to be clinically
trained,
one goes on to do an internship,
and then at least a couple
of years of post-doctoral
training.
So in sum, it is probably
about 8 years of training
that got me to where I am.
Once you're in the field
of neuropsychology,
a research career is
also very competitive.
So day to day, you're
working on grants and trying
to fund the work
that you're doing,
as well as writing manuscripts
and trying to publish the work
that you've conducted.
So I chose this career
field, because I find, again,
the brain extremely fascinating.
I think that the
ability to be able
to create your own research
questions and pursue them
in a way that is interesting
to you and that you find novel
and exciting is hard to
find in any other career.
I love what I do.
The ability to balance
clinical work and research
in my opinion is the
best of both worlds.
Not only does my work
with patients really
inform how I think
about research questions,
but the research really gives
me some backbone to talk
with adolescents
and their families
about what might be
happening in their brains,
and how that affects
their day-to-day behavior.
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