Sheri Johnson

One line of my work focuses on understanding the predictors of depression and mania within bipolar disorder. We have found strong parallels between the triggers and phenomenology of unipolar and bipolar depression. We also have found that bipolar disorder is related to elevations in reward sensitivity, or the tendency to be overly reactive to rewards. Reward sensitivity predicts increases in mania, as do life events involving reward.

A second line of work focuses on understanding impulsivity that occurs during states of high emotion.  We have developed a personality measure that assesses trait-like tendencies toward this form of impulsivity, and we have linked emotion-related impulsivity to a broad range of psychopathologies, suicidality, and aggression.  Some of our current work focuses on understanding the mechanisms, at a cognitive and neural level, that lead to this form of impulsivity.