The neuroanatomical basis of the human stress response
This project aims to determine which areas of the human brain are necessary for the production of a stress response.  During Phase I, we tested neurological patients with damage to the medial temporal lobe and/or medial prefrontal cortex to examine whether these patients can show a stress response to a psychosocial stressor.  This work was in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Tranel at the Department of Neurology, University of Iowa and Dr. Clemens Kirschbaum, Technical University of Dresden, Germany.  We are expanding this research to examine the neural bases of individual differences in stress reactivity.  This work, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Brenda Kirchhoff, and Dr. Tamara Hershey, will examine the structure and function of the brains of healthy individuals who show large stress responses versus those who show only small stress responses. 

Effects of stress on memory in depression
In this study, we are addressing the neurobiological basis for memory disturbance in major depressive disorder (MDD).  Individuals with MDD show a negative bias in memory (recalling more negative than positive events) as well as an overall reduction in episodic memory performance.  The hypothesis behind this study is that these seemingly contradictory memory patterns are the result of chronic stress.  We are testing this hypothesis by examining how individuals with MDD respond to a laboratory stress task and how this stress response affects memory consolidation and memory retrieval for emotional material.  This work is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Terri Weaver, Department of Psychology, Saint Louis University, and is funded by the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD).

How does stress affect cognitive and health outcomes?
Some individuals show large stress responses, while others show little or no responses to stressful situations.  Does showing a laboratory stress response tell us anything about an individual’s long-term health or cognitive performance?  We hope to address this question in a healthy population of freshmen and sophomores at Saint Louis University by examining stress responses to a laboratory task and following the students’ health and academic outcomes over their four years in university. 

Does stress increase tip-of-the-tongue phenomena?
Who is that guy that played that character in that movie? Everyone believes that stress makes it more difficult to find the word or name that they're looking for, but this has never been tested empirically. That's what we're working on in this series of studies in collaboration with Dr. Lori James, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

Does observing stress in others increase stress in the observer and does that observed stress influence helping behavior?
When we see someone in pain or under stress we (sometimes) feel bad for them and (sometimes) try to help them. What are the neural and physiological bases for these matching responses and the decision to help others? These are the questions we hope to address in this work in collaboration with Dr. Stephanie Preston, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan. This work is funded by the Templeton Foundation's Positive Neuroscience Initiative.

How does stress affect verbal fluency?
Public speaking is one of the most stressful events that most people will endure on a regular basis. People commonly believe that their speech patterns are affected by stress, but this presumption has not received much research attention. In a series of studies, we are examining how the stress of speaking in public affects spoken language variables such as verbal fluency.

Collaborators:
Melissa Duff, PhD, Departments of Neurology and Speech Communication, University of Iowa

Jacqueline Laures-Gore, PhD, Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education, Georgia State University