Michael Stevens, PhD
Professor Adjunct in PsychiatryCards
About
Titles
Professor Adjunct in Psychiatry
Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Clinical Neuroscience and Development Laboratory at Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center; Director, Child & Adolescent Research, The Institute of Living
Biography
Dr. Stevens has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health since shortly after he received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1999. His NRSA-funded postdoctoral work at the University of Connecticut Health Center focused on neuropsychological and neurobiological study of adolescent risk factors for addictions. After joining the UCHC faculty as an assistant professor and starting adolescent-related clinical and research programs, Dr. Stevens left in 2002 to help develop the just-founded Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center. Here, Dr. Stevens received a K23 Career Development award from the NIMH to provide him opportunity to gain expertise in fMRI and EEG methods. He received his academic appointment in the Yale Department of Psychiatry in 2003, was promoted to Adjunct Associate Professor in 2009, and Full Professor in 2017. During this time, he has been the Principal Investigator or a co-investigator on dozens of R01-level NIH grants that use neuroimaging, EEG, neurocognitive, and genetic methods to better understand a variety of different neuropsychiatric disorders. These include ADHD and other disruptive behavior disorders of childhood, Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Illness, Autism, psychosis, TBI, and recently both alcohol-related addiction as well as the effects of cannabis on the brain. Much of this research work focuses on the developmental period starting at puberty until early adulthood, and incorporates both concepts and methodology that examines distributed neural networks in the brain. Most recently, Dr. Stevens has become keenly interested in using neuroimaging tools to accelerate development of novel, non-pharmacological clinical interventions such as cognitive training, rTMS and tDCS
Departments & Organizations
- Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center
Education & Training
- Postdoc
- University of Connecticut Healthcare Center (2001)
- PhD
- University of Connecticut (1999)
- Intern
- West Haven VA Connecticut Healthcare System (1999)
- MA
- University of Connecticut, Clinical Psychology (1997)
- BA
- Tulane University, Psychology (1993)
Research
Overview
Currently, Dr. Stevens is responsible for directing a clinical neuroscience research lab at the Olin NRC that uses neuroimaging (both fMRI and structural neuroimaging) and other neurobiological research techniques (EEG, genetics, neuropsychological assessment) to address cognitive and clinical neuroscience questions in childhood psychiatric disorders. Dr. Stevens’ faculty responsibilities all directly involve research, or teaching/administrative duties relevant to this research mission. Dr. Stevens’ research is broadly aimed at better understanding the neurobiological basis of many different neuropsychiatric illnesses. He is principal investigator on projects studying the genetic and neural basis of AD/HD, Conduct Disorder, adolescent depression, and traumatic brain injury, and makes active contributions to multiple other NIH-funded grants of his colleagues. Although he has varied interests in the types of psychopathology he studies, his career activities have been generally focused on understanding developmental aspects of psychopathology. His research program to date can be broadly described as study of neurobiological risk for psychiatric illness, differentiating clinically similar psychiatric disorders that arise in childhood on the neurobiological level (including identifying predictive endophenotypes for genetic association studies), and studying the interaction of neurobiological abnormalities and maturation. In particular, Dr. Stevens has contributed to understanding neural network connectivity in neurodevelopmental psychiatric illnesses and cognitive development. He is an active researcher in the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, examining trajectories of neural network development, relationships between structural and functional neural network integration, and how abnormalities in systems-level brain connectivity contribute to the pathophysiology of psychiatric illnesses.