Translational clinical neuroscience research on personality and psychopathology, especially openness to experience, positive schizotypy, and psychotic disorders.
Current research is especially focused on striatal functioning, feedback-related learning, and aberrant salience.
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.