In the News
February 28, 2024
Temple Now spotlights Johanna’s new grant for a study examining social anxiety in adolescents
Johanna Jarcho and her team have been awarded more than $3.7 million from the National Institute of Mental Health for their newest study that will use neuroimaging to see how adolescents respond to peer feedback, aiming to find a potential new treatment for social anxiety.
November 29, 2022
The lab coordinates a thrifting event to raise money for Teacher’s Teammates
The SDN Laboratory hosted a thrift store event on Temple’s campus to raise money for Teacher’s Teammates, a nonprofit organization that helps K-12 teachers and students in Delaware County have the tools they need to succeed in the classroom. The lab managed to raise over $300 from the event.
November 7, 2022
Camille Johnston, our fourth year Social Psychology PhD student, defends her Preliminary Exam and Dissertation Proposal
The Preliminary Examination requires a review and synthesis of the literature in a specific area of interest, defined in consultation with the student’s primary advisor and substantively related to the topic of the student’s Dissertation. Camille's Preliminary Exam topic explores the existing literature on how higher-order beliefs impact memories and predictions, which will support her forthcoming paper on biases in recalling and predicting social feedback.
The Dissertation proposal is an oral presentation of a topic or study proposed by the graduate student, that will be used to generate their dissertation. The dissertation is study that is developed by the graduate student based on their interests. Camille’s dissertation will be looking at the neural mechanisms by which biased memories for social experiences emerge following childhood maltreatment. Her dissertation proposal has also been submitted to the NIMH for a grant called the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) to support her dissertation work.
September, 2022
Megan Quarmley, Tessa Clarkson, and Camille Johnston present at the Flux Conference
Neural Mechanisms of Social Rejection elicited Aggression in Adolescence by Megan Quarmley
Aggression linked to peer rejection is a prevalent problem that typically increases in adolescence. Trait aggression, measured via questionnaire, has been associated with dysregulated engagement in the amygdala, insula, and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Adolescents aged 11-15 completed the Virtual School and Aggression Paradigm (VS-AP) while undergoing fMRI. We found that the VS-AP evoked social rejection and increased activation in the mid insula, right amygdala, and MPFC while receiving negative feedback are associated with more aggressive subsequent behavior.
Learning to Fear Social Interactions: Dysregulated Neural Mechanisms of Social Learning in Adolescant Social Anxiety by Tessa Clarkson
Social anxiety (SA) disorder is associated with dysregulated engagement of neural circuits implicated in salience and reward processing, which are critical hubs for learning. To study the influence of social context and feedback on learning in SA, we paired computational modeling with a novel social interaction fMRI task to determine the extent to which peer value and predictability of peer feedback modulate the neural bases of social learning about peers and their relation to adolescent SA. Youth with clinically relevant SA learn to fear social interactions by emphasizing unexpected negative feedback, and discounting unexpected positive feedback to rapidly adjust learning. More severe SA was associated with decreased engagement of salience, reward and cognitive control regions in predictably nice social contexts, and only engaged cognitive control regions in unpredictably mean social contexts.
Neural Mechanisms of Negative Memory Bias for Social Interactions in Young Adults with Childhood Maltreatment by Camille Johnston
Threat-based childhood maltreatment often results in social and affective impairments that increase risk for mental health problems and intergenerational abuse. We tested whether threat-based maltreatment is associated with distinct patterns of neural activation when encoding social feedback, and the extent to which maltreatment is associated with a negativity bias when recalling this feedback. Young adults (N=38, 18-24 years) received positive and negative social feedback from purported peers while undergoing fMRI, then following the scan completed a surprise recall task for peer feedback. We hypothesize that threat-based maltreatment in childhood will be associated with reduced reward-related neural activation for positive vs. negative social feedback, and greater negativity bias when recalling social feedback. Exploratory analyses will test for differences in brain and behavior response to monetary feedback and subsequent recall.
September, 2022
Megan, Tessa, and Johanna publish a paper in the journal Aggressive Behavior
Megan Quarmley, Tessa Clarkson, and Johanna Jarcho published a paper entitled "Effects of social rejection on aggressive and prosocial behavior: a meta-analysis” in the journal Aggressive Behavior which reviews existing literature on whether social rejection more commonly results in aggressive or prosocial behavior.
August 10, 2022
The SDN lab hosts a supply drive and volunteers with Teacher’s Teammates
The Social Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory partnered up with Teacher’s Teammates: a nonprofit built to help teachers in Delaware County pay for the basic supplies that their classrooms need. The lab helped collect school supply donations and then assisted the organization with their back to school clearance sale.
April 8, 2022
Alisha Arora is awarded the 2022 Temple University Diamond Award
The Diamond Award is the highest recognition by Student Affairs given to a Temple University undergraduate student. This recognition is based on a holistic evaluation of the student’s accomplishments. The award is reserved for those who have demonstrated superior leadership, academic achievement, service to the University, and impact on a community (local, regional, or global). Through their leadership, it is clear that they are set apart from others as especially deserving of this unique honor. Award recipients are recognized at the Annual Diamond Award Ceremony.
April, 2022
Margherita Calderon gets accepted into the accelerated 4+1 Master’s program in Neuroscience
Margherita has been accepted as part of the accelerated 4+1 Master’s program in Neuroscience: Systems and Behavior here at Temple. In this program, she has the opportunity to take grad classes starting her senior year of college, be in contact with other grad students and will have the opportunity to more challenging, yet interesting, coursework and research.
February, 2022
Ronan Cunningham joins the lab as a graduate student
Ronan joined the lab as a 1st year PhD student after spending time as a research coordinator in the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit at Johns Hopkins, and in the Psychiatry Department at Temple University.
January 10, 2022
Megan receives prestigious F31 research grant
Megan was featured in Temple Now for being one of three Temple students who were awarded The Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, an award only given to fewer than 20% of those who apply. In the future, Megan would like to “develop novel interventions to prevent social rejection-elicited aggression”. Congratulations Megan!
NOVEMBER 23, 2021
Dr. Johanna Jarcho, Megan, and Tessa have recently published papers in press
Megan, and Tessa are co-authors on a paper recently published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Dr. Jarcho is also a co-author on a recent paper published in Sleep. You can find all of our recent publications under our “Publications” page!
October 18, 2021
Megan was awarded the NIH F31 Fellowship
Megan Quarmley is one of two current students awarded the NIH F31 fellowship in Dr. Johanna Jarcho’s Social Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory. The lab focuses its efforts on how social processes change over the course of a lifetime, with particular interest in adolescents’ learning and how emotional experiences influence their social behavior. Using fMRI, Megan is examining how adolescents’ brain networks interact while communicating with others online. This project will inform why some real world behavioral interventions work better than others. Upon graduation, Megan hopes to have a career where she can meld teaching and research with her clinical responsibilities. Dr. Jarcho confirmed that Megan is on target for a promising career as she is exceptionally good in all three areas.
July 20, 2021
Megan received the Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award F31 Fellowship
Megan, our fifth year Clinical Psychology PhD student was awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award F31 Fellowship for her dissertation entitled “Neural Mechanisms of Social Rejection elicited Aggression in Adolescence”. This study will use fMRI to examine how networks in the brain interact while adolescents interact with others online and decide how to respond.
July 14, 2021
Megan Quarmley defended her dissertation proposal
Megan, our fifth year Clinical Psychology PhD student defended her dissertation proposal on Wednesday entitled “Neural Mechanisms of Social Rejection elicited Aggression in Adolescence”. This study will use fMRI to examine how networks in the brain interact while adolescents interact with others online and decide how to respond.
May 13, 2021
Olivia Rojek received the Frances Velay fellowship
The Frances Velay fellowship is a program sponsored by the Panaphil/Uphill Foundation in honor of Frances Velay, a woman who earned her MS in chemistry from NYU in 1947 when very few women participated in STEM. The purpose of the Frances Velay fellowship is to encourage female leadership in STEM and provide support to undergraduate female students who demonstrate excellence in the sciences. Olivia Rojek was selected to be a Frances Velay fellow. Her project for the Frances Velay fellowship will focus on the effects of childhood unpredictability and loneliness on mental health symptoms experienced during the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
May 6, 2021
Caroline Kessler received the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Award (LAURA)
Caroline Kessler was selected to be a LAURA Scholar by the Research Council in the College of Liberal Arts for her research project titled “The Effects of Childhood Unpredictability and COVID-Related Sheltering-in-Place on Mental Health” for the summer 2021 semester. This grant is funded by the College of Liberal Arts which promotes research experience for undergraduate students while they work closely with faculty mentors and supports faculty research being done in the College of Liberal Arts. Caroline is interested in exploring how exposure to childhood unpredictability influenced mental health throughout the pandemic, and how living with parents and experiencing loneliness may impact this relationship.
March 26, 2021
Olivia Rojek selected as a finalist for the Frances Velay Fellowship
Olivia Rojek applied for the Frances Velay Fellowship through the College of Science and Technology, and was recently selected as a finalist! This gives Olivia the opportunity to develop and submit a research proposal for consideration. The goal of the fellowship is to encourage and support women’s leadership in the sciences, by offering female undergraduates the opportunity to develop and direct summer research projects that will prepare them for graduate study and professional careers in scientific fields.
January 2, 2021
Catherine Archambault received the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Award (LAURA)
Catherine Archambault was awarded the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Award (LAURA) for her research entitled “Effects of Temple COVID Policy on the relations of race and health”. This grant is funded by the College of Liberal Arts which promotes research experience for undergraduate students while they work closely with faculty mentors and supports faculty research being done in the College of Liberal Arts. Catherine is interested in examining the extent to which students’ beliefs about the effectiveness of safety precautions at Temple University impacted the well-being of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) or under-represented minority (URM) groups.
December 21, 2020
The SDN Lab created a how-to video, Homestead Holiday edition #SDNHomesteadHolidaySpecial
November 19, 2020
Alisha Arora received the Creative Arts, Research, and Scholarships (CARAS) Grant
“I am excited to have received the CARAS Research Project Grant, through which I plan to present a poster at the 2021 Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS) Conference and work towards publication in a peer-reviewed manuscript. My research project entails utilizing an ecologically valid social interaction task and electroencephalogram (EEG) to test how Stimulus-Preceding Negativity (SPN) responses to peer feedback modulate relations between an intolerance for uncertainty (IU) and social anxiety (SA) in adolescents. I hope results of this project elucidate critical neural mechanisms that underlie relations between IU and SA during SA provoking interactions that are fundamental to treating chronic SA.”
November 11, 2020
Dr. Johanna Jarcho and Tessa Clarkson each receive the Public Policy Lab (PPL) Fellowship
The Public Policy Lab (PPL) supports faculty and graduate student scholarship addressing either public policies themselves or social conditions and processes with implications for public policy. We welcome scholars using a wide variety of methodological approaches. All Fellows are appointed for one academic year. Fellows join a diverse cohort of scholars in an interdisciplinary forum for discussion of contemporary policy issues. They participate in our on-going PPL Fellowship Workshop in which participants present work in progress and provide feedback on each other’s written work. Faculty members also present their work in our PPL Colloquia Series.
JANUARY 20, 2020
Megan Quarmley receives the TUBRIC “NeuroSpark” Trainee Award
Megan Quarmley is our PhD student who received the TUBRIC "NeuroSpark" Trainee Award! This award will provide her with scan time at Temple's MRI scanner to complete her project "Neural Mechanisms of Social Rejection elicited Aggression in Adolescence".
DECEMBER 11, 2019
Tessa Clarkson receives the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship
Tessa Clarkson was awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (Parent F31) for her dissertation project entitled “Learning from Evaluation And Recall of iNteractions (LEARN)”. This grant is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health which enables promising predoctoral students to obtain individualized, mentored research training from outstanding faculty sponsors while conducting dissertation research in scientific health-related fields relevant to the missions of the participating NIH Institutes and Centers. Tessa’s LEARN study examines how children and adolescents’ brains learn about their peers as they interact with them online. She is interested in if there are differences in the way individuals with and without social anxiety experientially learn during social interactions. For those interested in being contacted to participate in this study, click here.
November 5, 2019
Tessa Clarkson receives a 2019 American Psychological Association (APA) Dissertation Research Award
Tessa Clarkson has been selected as a recipient of a 2019 American Psychological Association (APA) Dissertation Award. The Science Directorate of the American Psychological Association sponsors an annual competition for dissertation research funding. The purpose of the Dissertation Research Award program is to assist science-oriented doctoral students of psychology with research costs. The current program includes 30-40 grants of $1,000 each, along with several larger grants of up to $5,000 to students whose dissertation research reflects excellence in scientific psychology.
November 1, 2019
Name drop!
Check out this article from the APA about how we can better treat anxiety in youth, where Dr. Johanna Jarcho’s research on social reticence is discussed.
October 14, 2019
Tessa Clarkson received the Philip J. Bersh Award Application
Tessa Clarkson received the Philip J. Bersh Memorial Student Award for her manuscript “Early Childhood Social Reticence and Neural Response to Peers in Preadolescence Predict Social Anxiety Symptoms in Mid-Adolescence.” This award recognizes the best paper written by a student in Temple’s Department of Psychology during the past year.
SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
Megan Quarmley received her Master’s degree
Megan Quarmley received her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology for her thesis looking at how the brain responds to social reward and how anxiety and depression affect these responses. Congratulations, Megan!
August 7, 2019
We are delighted to welcome two new graduate students to the lab!
Camille Johnston is an incoming Ph.D. student in the social area who recently received her B.S. in neuroscience from UCLA. She is interested in neuroimaging and the development of social cognition in close relationships.
Marissa is an incoming M.S. student in the neuroscience program who recently received her B.S. in psychology from Northern Kentucky University. Her main research interests include developmental cognitive neuroscience, neural mechanisms of behavior, mental disorders, diagnostic tools and early intervention research.
August 7, 2019
Megan Quarmley has successfully defended her Master’s thesis
Megan received her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology after completing her thesis entitled, “I Knew You Weren’t Going to Like Me! Neural Response to Accurately Predicting Rejection is Associated with Anxiety and Depression.”
August 1, 2019
Two new staff members have joined the lab!
Rachel Ore is joining us as a lab coordinator who started as an undergraduate research assistant in the SDN lab and continued working with us part time upon her graduation from Temple University. She is now transitioning to a full time position in the lab! Rachel is interested in pursuing a Ph. D in clinical psychology.
Caleb Haynes is splitting his time between the SDN Lab and Dr. David Smith’s Neuroeconomics lab to help with MRI scans, data analysis, and programming. He graduated from Arizona State University earlier this year, and he's interested in pursuing a PhD in the field of social neuroscience.
August 1ST, 2019
Dr. Jarcho is the Interim Director of the Social Area at Temple University
As Interim Director of the Social Area, Dr. Jarcho has some great new events planned for faculty and students. First, we are growing the area in new and exciting ways! We are welcoming new faculty member Dr. Chelsea Helion, and current faculty members Dr. Ingrid Olson and Dr. David Smith, to the area! Each has joint appointments in the Cognition & Neuroscience area, and are excited to be accepting new Social graduate students. Second, we will be holding an open house at the beginning of the semester to celebrate our new members. Third, we have instituted joint Social/Cognition & Neuroscience symposia which will be held throughout the semester. Dr. Jarcho is looking forward to her new role and this new chapter for the Social Area.
July 31st, 2019
Our fourth year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student, Tessa Clarkson, recently successfully defended her Preliminary Exam and Dissertation Proposal
The Preliminary Examination is a critical review and synthesis of the literature in a specific area of interest, defined in consultation with the student’s primary advisor and substantively related to the topic of the student’s Dissertation. Tessa’s Preliminary Exam topic empirically examines the impact and use of the RDoC Framework, a guideline for designing and studying topics on mental health put forth by the NIMH in 2010, in research on social processing in children and adolescence. This paper has also been submitted for publication.
The Dissertation proposal is an oral presentation of a topic or study proposed by the graduate student, that will be used to generate their dissertation. The dissertation is study that is developed by the graduate student based on their interests. Tessa’s dissertation will be looking at how learning in social contexts my be disrupted in adolescents with social anxiety symptoms. Her dissertation proposal has also been submitted to the NIMH for a grant called the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) to support her dissertation work.
MAY, 2018
Athena receives a summer research project stipend under the honors program
Athena Vafiadis is a rising Senior and a member of the Honors College here at Temple University. Through the Honors program, she proposed an abstract for a summer research project and was granted the summer stipend to work on it with the Social Developmental Neuroscience Lab. Her study is titled Virtual University at Temple University!
April 26th, 2019
Megan’s NSF graduate research fellowship program (GRFP) honoree
Megan Quarmley is one of eight Drexel students and recent alumni that received the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and four received Honorable Mentions. These students were selected from over 12,000 applicants nationwide who have demonstrated exemplary commitment to their research.
Megan graduated from Drexel University in 2012 and is now a second year student in the Clinical Psychology PhD program at Temple University. Megan’s research focuses on the interplay of social rejection and aggression. She is also interested in neural correlates of social functioning deficits and in developing treatment interventions for children and adolescents with impairments in these domains.
NOVEMBER, 2018
NEW STUDY!
We have started our SPOT study! We are excited to have participants in the lab!
We have received symposium acceptance at ADAA! The ADAA 2019 39th Annual Conference (March 28-31, Chicago, IL) will bring together an expected 1,400 clinicians and researchers from across the US and around the world who want to improve treatments and find cures for anxiety, depression and co-occurring disorders. Our work is titled Neural Response to Social and Non-Social Information: Associations with Anxiety and Depression Symptoms during Childhood through Late Adolescence. We look forward to sharing our work at the conference.
September 5th, 2018
Tessa Clarkson won second year research award
Our third year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student, Tessa Clarkson, recently won the Second Year Research Award at Stony Brook University.
The Second Year Research Award is given to acknowledge the best master’s thesis of the year in the graduate Ph.D. psychology programs. Tessa’s project examined early childhood and preadolescent brain and behavioral risk factors collectively predicting risk for the continuation of social anxiety symptoms in mid-adolescence. She tested the extent to which brain function during social interactions in preadolescence influenced the effects of social anxiety and early childhood social reticence on the persistence of social anxiety symptoms in mid-adolescence.
August 20th & 21st, 2018
New Eye Tracker equipment!
Our Eye Tracker was delivered! Even more new equipment for our new studies! We were very fortunate, yet again, to have an in-depth two day training on our new equipment. We look forward to using this for upcoming studies.
August 13th & 14th, 2018
New EEG equipment!
Our EEG equipment was delivered! Our lab was lucky enough to get a two day training with our new equipment from the developers of the system. We're excited to start up our new EEG studies!
August, 2018
We moved!
We have officially moved to Temple University from Stony Brook University. We're still finishing up our FRIEND study at Stony Brook (check that out in our "Current Studies" section), which means there is still some time to participate in our research studies on Long Island.
Moving forward, we will be recruiting from the Greater Philadelphia area!
October 25, 2017
Dr. Johanna Jarcho featured on Vice newsletter
Dr. Johanna Jarcho was quoted in an interview: Getting Bullied as a Kid Can Stay with You for Life. link.
October 12, 2017
Hung-Wei Chen won the diversity fun undergraduate registration award
Hung-Wei (Bernie) Chen, one of our undergraduate Research Assistants, won the Diversity Fund Undergraduate Registration Award to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) 2018 Convention, Atlanta, GA. This award provides financial support for its recipients to travel to the annual conference. Congratulations!
April 25, 2017
Ali Pellecchia received a research grant from URECA
Ali Pellecchia, one of our undergraduate Research Assistants, received a research grant for summer 2017 from the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (URECA) Summer Program. This program provides financial support for Stony Brook students to complete 10 weeks of full-time mentored research. Congratulations!