Mary Woody, PhD
University of Pittsburgh
Mary Woody, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Woody received her B.S. in psychology and women & gender studies from the University of Miami and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Binghamton University (SUNY). She completed her doctoral clinical internship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic before completing an NIMH T32-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. Her interests and expertise fall at the intersection of clinical psychology, biological psychiatry, and social-cognitive-affective neuroscience with a focus on affective disorders (depression, anxiety) and mental health equity across development. Her training has included an emphasis on the assessment of affect-biased information processing across multiple levels of analysis, including neuroimaging (EEG, fMRI), psychophysiology (pupillometry, autonomic nervous system activity), and behavior (facial affect, eye tracking). Her long-term research interests include using these assessment tools to 1) identify mechanisms underlying the development, maintenance, and recurrence of affective disorders and 2) developing and refining novel experimental therapeutics to target these mechanisms.
Using Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials to Probe Affect-Biased Attention among Adolescent Girls at High Risk for Depression
Depression is a leading contributor to the global burden of disease, and rates of depression increase rapidly during adolescence, particularly for girls. Affect-biased attention is a putative mechanism underlying adolescent depression that may also represent a target for intervention. In this talk, I will present preliminary data from my ongoing K23 that uses steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs), derived from EEG, to test a mechanistic model of the visuocortical dynamics underlying the role of affect-biased attention in the development of depression using a risk-enriched sample of adolescent girls with no history of major depression at baseline (n=90). I will describe initial findings from a multi-wave assessment of symptoms and SSVEP indices of affect-biased attention. Finally, I will discuss preliminary findings supporting the development and implementation of a novel SSVEP neurofeedback training to target affect-biased attention.