Karen F. Berman, M.D.
The Unit on Integrative Neuroimaging within the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch
of the NIMH is a multidisciplinary team using functional neuroimaging
methods - positron emission tomography, structural and functional MRI,
and others - to map brain activity and neurochemical mechanisms associated
with normal higher cognitive function as well as dysfunction in
neuropsychiatric illnesses. Particular areas of study include
1) the neurophysiological and neuroanatomical substrate of
higher cognitive function, particularly as regards working memory
and frontal lobe, 2) neurofunctional bases of neuropsychiatric
illnesses, especially schizophrenia, 3) neurochemical underpinnings
of higher cognitive function and dysfunction, 4) computational neuroscience
(statistical and systems approaches), and 5) effects of gonadal
steroid hormones on brain function related to cognition. The team as
a whole combines expertise in neurology, psychiatry, nuclear medicine,
neuropsychology, functional neuroanatomy, and statistical and
computational neuroscience to investigate these research areas.
Selected Recent Bibliography:
Berman KF, Randolph C, Gold JM, Goldberg TE, Ostrem JL, Coppola R, Carson RE, Herscovitch P, Weinberger DR: Activation of a cortical network during performance of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: A positron emission tomography study. Neuropsychologia, 33:1027-1046, 1995.
Van Horn JD, Berman KF, Weinberger DR: Functional lateralization of the prefrontal cortex during traditional frontal lobe tasks. Biological Psychiatry 39:389-399, 1996.
Gold JM, Berman KF, Randolph C, Goldberg TE, Weinberger DR: PET validation of a novel prefrontal task: Delayed response alternation (DRA). Neuropsychology, 10:3-10, 1996.
Esposito G, Van Horn JD, Weinberger DR, Berman KF: Gender differences in cerebral blood flow as a function of cognitive state with PET. Journal of Nuclear Medicine, 37: 559-564,1996.
Goldberg TE, Berman KF, Randolph C, Gold JM, Weinberger DR: Isolating the mnemonic component in spatial delayed response: a controlled PET oxygen-15 water cerebral blood flow study in normal humans. NeuroImage 3:69-78, 1996.
Kirkby BS, Ostrem JL, Van Horn JD, Weinberger DR, Berman KF: Cognitive activation during PET: A case study of monozygotic twins discordant for closed head injury. Neuropsychologia, 34:689-697, 1996.
Mattay VS, Berman KF, Ostrem JL, Esposito G, Van Horn JD, Bigelow LB, Weinberger DR: Dextroamphetamine enhances "neural network specific" physiological signals: A PET rCBF study. Journal of Neuroscience 16:4816-4822, 1996.
Weinberger DR and Berman KF: Prefrontal function in schizophrenia: Confounds and controversies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) 351:1495-1503, 1996.
Berman KF, Schmidt PJ, Rubinow DR, Danaceau MA, Van Horn JD, Esposito E, Ostrem JL, Weinberger DR: Modulation of cognition-specific cortical activity by gonadal steroids: A PET study in women. Procedings of the National Academy of Science, 94:8836-8841, 1997.
Iadarola MJ, Berman KF, Zeffiro TA, Byas-Smith MG, Gracely RH, Max MB, Bennett GJ: Neural activation during acute capsaicin-evoked pain and allodynia assessed with positron emission tomography. Brain 121:931-947, 1998.
VanHorn JD, Ellmore TM, Holt JL, Esposito G, and Berman KF: Multifiltering signal detection and statistical power in brain activation studies. In: Carson R, Daube-Witherspoon, and Herscovitch P (eds.) Quantitative Functional Brain Imaging with Positron Emission Tomography, Academic Press, pp. 237-240, 1998.
Van Horn JD, Gold JM, Esposito G, Ostrem JL, Mattay VS, Weinberger DR, Berman KF: Changing patterns of brain activation during maze learning. Brain Research 793:29-38, 1998.
Goldberg TE, Berman KF, Fleming K, Ostrem JL, Van Horn JD, Esposito E, Mattay VS, Gold JM, Weinberger DR: Uncoupling cognitive workload and prefrontal cortical physiology: a PET rCBF study. NeuroImage 7:296-303, 1998.
Van Horn JD, Ellmore TM, Esposito GE, Berman KF: Mapping voxel-based statistical power on parametric images. NeuroImage 7:97-107, 1998.
Schapiro MB, Berman KF, Alexander GE, Weinberger DR, Rapoport SI: Regional cerebral blood flow in Down syndrome adults during the Wisconsin Card Sorting test: Exploring cognitive activation in the context of poor performance. Biological Psychiatry 45: 1190-1196,1999.
Berman KF, and Weinberger DR: Functional Brain Imaging Studies in Schizophrenia. In: Charney DS, Nestler EJ, Bunney BS (eds.), Neurobiology of Mental Illness, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 2246-2257, 1999. 3
Gourovitch ML, Kirkby BS, Goldberg TE, Weinberger DR, Gold JM, Esposito G, Van Horn JD, Berman KF: A comparison of rCBF patterns during phonological and semantic fluency. submitted.
Esposito G, Kirkby BS, Van Horn JD, Ellmore TM, Berman KF: Context-dependent, neural system-specific neurophysiological correlates of aging: mapping PET correlates during cognitive activation. Brain, 122: 963-979,1999.
Bertolino A, Esposito G, Callicott JH, Mattay VS, Van Horn JD, Frank JA, Berman KF, Weinberger DR: A specific relationship between prefrontal neuronal N-acetyl-aspartate and activation of the working memory cortical network in schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, in press.
Ye F, Berman KF, Ellmore T, Esposito G, Van Horn JD, Yang Y, Duhn J, Smith AM, Frank JA, Weinberger DR, McLaughlin AC: H215O PET validation of steady-state arterial spin tagging cerebral blood flow measurements in humans. Submitted.
Meyer-Lindenberg A and Berman KF: The frontal lobe in schizophrenia. In: Salloway SP, Malloy PF, and
Duffy JD (ed s.) The Frontal Lobes and Neuropsychiatric Illness, APA Press, Washington, D.C., in press.
Meyer-Lindenberg A, Ziemann U, Hajak G, Cohen L, and Berman KF: Stable and unstable dynamics in a human cortical motor control network: a combined neuroimaging-TMS study, submitted.