The psychological and neural basis of cognitive and emotional control, factors that diminish control, and the role of poor control in psychopathology such as psychosis.
Current research is especially focused on striatal functioning, feedback-related learning, and aberrant salience in psychosis risk and in the schizophrenia-spectrum.
I am admitting graduate students for fall 2026.
Straub, K. T., & Kerns, J. G. (in press). Relationships between positive schizotypy and facets of openness to experience. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.
Hua, J. P. Y., Karcher, N. R., Straub, K. T., & Kerns, J. G. (2022). Associations between long-term psychosis risk, probabilistic category learning, and attenuated psychotic symptoms with cortical surface morphometry. Brain Imaging and Behavior, 16, 91-106.
Straub, K. T., & Kerns, J. G. (2021). Positive schizotypy, maladaptive openness, and openness facets. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 12, 51-58.
Straub, K. T., Hua, J. P. Y., Karcher, N. R., & Kerns, J. G. (2020). Psychosis risk is associated with decreased white matter integrity in limbic network corticostriatal tracts. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 301: 111089.
Karcher, N. R., Hua, J. P. Y., & Kerns, J. G. (2019). Striatum-related functional activation during reward- and punishment-based learning in psychosis risk. Neuropsychopharmacology, 44, 1967-1974.
Hua, J. P. Y., Karcher, N. R., Merrill, A. M., O’Brien, K. J., Straub, K. T., Trull, T. J., & Kerns, J. G. (2019). Psychosis risk is associated with decreased resting-state functional connectivity between the striatum and the default mode network. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 19, 998-1011.
Karcher, N. R., Hua, J. P. Y., & Kerns, J. G. (2019). Probabilistic category learning and striatal functional activation in psychosis risk. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 45, 396-404.
Karcher, N. R., Martin, E. A., & Kerns, J. G. (2015). Examining associations between psychosis risk, social anhedonia, and performance of striatum-related behavioral tasks. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 124, 507-518.
Cicero, D. C., Docherty, A. R., Martin, E.A., Becker, T.M., & Kerns, J. G. (2015). Aberrant salience, self-concept clarity, and interview-rated psychotic-like experiences. Journal of Personality Disorders, 29, 79-99.
Cicero, D. C., Kerns, J. G., & McCarthy, D. M. (2010). The aberrant salience inventory: A new measure of psychosis proneness. Psychological Assessment, 22, 688-701.