Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli
Northeastern University, MA·Psychology
Depression in teenagers is common and disabling, and the best available treatments help only about half of patients. One reason may be rumination, the habit of turning the same distressing thoughts over and over.
- Fields
Psychology
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
adolescent depression
major depressive disorder
rumination
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Test whether mindfulness-based real-time fMRI neurofeedback engages its intended brain target by reducing hyperconnectivity within the default mode network, the circuit active during inward self-focused thought, in adolescents aged 13 to 18 with major depressive disorder.
- Determine the optimal dose by randomizing 90 depressed adolescents, after a 45-minute mindfulness training outside the scanner, to either a 15-minute or a 30-minute neurofeedback session and comparing network connectivity change.
- Test in a double-blind randomized trial of 120 depressed adolescents whether mindfulness plus neurofeedback reduces clinician-assessed depression symptoms more than mindfulness alone at post-treatment and at one and three months.
- Measure whether the combined intervention reduces rumination, the tendency to perseverate on depressive thoughts, using clinician-administered instruments, self-report, and ecological momentary assessment that samples thoughts during daily life.
More about the research
Rumination contributes to depression starting in the first place and predicts who will not respond to treatment and who will relapse. In the brain, rumination goes along with unusually strong communication within the default mode network, a set of regions that becomes active during inward-focused, self-referential thought; this same over-connectivity shows up repeatedly in depression. This project asks whether teenagers can be trained to turn that network down and whether doing so improves their symptoms.
Why it matters
Adolescent major depression is highly prevalent and current gold-standard treatments fail roughly half of patients. By testing whether a brief, brain-targeted mindfulness intervention can reduce the network activity underlying rumination and thereby relieve symptoms, this trial could add a non-drug option for depressed teenagers and demonstrate a way to select treatment based on a measured brain target rather than symptoms alone.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Norah C Feeny
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Psychology
Test in an open trial of 45 people whether PATH, a six-session therapy, reduces unproductive event processing, avoidance and reward-processing deficits in people with persistent symptoms after a destabilizing life event.
Manish Jha
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Neuroscience·Early-career
Identify patterns of resting-state functional connectivity linked to irritability, using 7 Tesla fMRI in 30 healthy adults and 60 adults with major depressive disorder.
Fabiano Nery
University of Cincinnati, OH·Medicine & Clinical Research
Measure how glutamate levels in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex change after 8 weeks of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and/or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in youth aged 15–24 with mild depression, using proton MR spectroscopy.
The school
Northeastern University: 27 labs on PI Pages, $347M a year on research, 251 research doctorates a year.
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