Kelly N. Botteron, M.D.

DEPARTMENT OF Psychiatry
Keywords: neuroimaging, mood disorders, psychiatry-child, brain development, twin research, genetics

Dr. Botteron’s research group has focused on studies of structural brain characteristics associated with normal brain development and related to specific psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents. As a specific example of this work, increasing evidence supports that neuromorphometric differences and dysfunction in frontal limbic circuits are important in the pathophysiology of affective (mood) disorders. Dr. Botteron’s lab has recently demonstrated changes in the medial prefrontal cortex in young individuals with major depression. Her group is interested in studying the structural development of brain regions involved in these neural circuits using three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) neuromorphometric techniques. MRI offers the unique opportunity to noninvasively and quantitatively study structural and functional neural development in vivo with young children and adolescents. Quantitative computer-assisted image processing techniques ranging from user-intensive to fully automated methods are employed. Current work includes studies with a twin population with major depression to better characterize the neuromorphometric aspects of development in limbic-cortical-striatal-pallidal-thalamic circuits in children with affective illness. The use of twin designs allows for the exploration of genetic and environmental contributions to variables of interest. Because relatively little is known about normal development during childhood and adolescence, Dr. Botteron’s lab also is currently involved in a multi-site study examining normal brain development in school-aged children.