Margaret Niznikiewicz

I am interested in language phenomena at sensory, phonological, semantic, and syntactic levels, as well as the memory structures and processes that support them. I aim to characterize these processes by gathering evidence from behavioral tasks (understand behavior) and relate them to brain function (understand underlying biology) using traditional psychology/neuropsychology methods as well as event related potential (ERP) methodology and fMRI. A recent and exciting development is the addition of a genetic component to some of these investigations in order to understand how genes modulate cognitive function.

My special focus has been on semantic memory operations in language disturbance in schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), a disorder genetically related to schizophrenia. I have also become involved in investigations (CIDAR and NAPLS) of reliable biomarkers in schizophrenia spectrum including prodromal individuals and in examining a relationship between their genetic profiles and cognitive function. My growing interest in social cognition has led to a collaboration with University of Minho, Portugal, where I am involved in the study of Williams syndrome in the largest cohort of these individuals in Europe.

In addition to my scientific activities, I have devoted substantial amount of time to teaching, mentoring and directing research activities at several research sites. My teaching activities have included weekly meetings with students and visiting fellows regarding research projects stemming from individual interests and lecturing to residents in Psychiatry and to post-Doctoral fellows in the Harvard Psychiatry Clinical Research Training Program. Additionally, I have been a mentor and supervisor to thirty five research assistants who work as staff but receive extensive training in research methodology and techniques and participate in research projects. On the administrative side, I have directed and supervised research activities at Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Boston VAMC since 1993, focusing on schizophrenia. Since 1998, I have directed the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the VA Jamaica Plain Campus focusing on schizotypal personality disorder. In 2008 I established and directed a third site, the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, focusing on prodromal schizophrenia.