Jessica Turner

Dr. Turner investigates the genetics underlying brain structure changes in chronic schizophrenia, as well as the genetic influences on functional and structural neuroimaging measures in other neuropsychological diseases. The first research program includes the extraction and understanding of multivariate patterns within the combined methods of neuroimaging and genetics, as applied to clinical populations. I primarily use independent component analysis (ICA), as well as its extensions into multi-modal datasets. My background is in psychophysics and MRI methodology as applied to a range of clinical populations, with secondary experience in the analysis of genome wide scan (GWS) data. I collaborate closely with psychiatrists, computer scientists, geneticists and neuroscientists in research on the genetics of brain function and dysfunction. Neuroinformatics The second research program includes the development of formal, computable representations of neuroimaging experiments, the experimental variables involved, and the results of the data for automated data sharing and meta-analysis within neurobiology. Through collaborations with other cognitive neuroscientists, computer scientists and engineers, we are building computer-accessible representations of neuroimaging experiments and data, to improve automated data retrieval and reasoning in cognitive neuroscience.