Jerillyn Kent, PhD
Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Minnesota
Motor Dysfunction in the Psychosis Spectrum: Implications for Pathophysiology, Genetic and Phenotypic Risk Factors, and Clinical Phenomenology
Motor abnormalities have been reported in individuals with psychotic disorders since some of the earliest clinical accounts of these disorders. However, motor dysfunction remains excluded from conceptualizations of core features of psychotic disorders and represents an understudied domain of functioning in serious mental illness. In this talk, Dr. Kent will argue that investigating motor behavior in the context of both relatively simple, evolutionarily conserved processes and complex cognitive control tasks has the potential to yield unique and novel information regarding aberrant circuitry and psychological processes in the psychosis spectrum. She will review her work using behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging methods to examine cerebellar integrity, the fluidity of motor behavior, and motor inhibition across individuals with psychotic disorders, their biological first-degree relatives, and individuals at ultrahigh risk of developing psychotic disorders. In synthesizing this body of work, she will (1) integrate findings of motor dysfunction in these populations into theoretical models of the development of psychosis, (2) discuss implications for the pathophysiology of psychotic disorders, (3) identify varying patterns of association with genetic liability and phenotypic risk for psychosis for different domains of motor dysfunction, and (4) discuss implications for identifying relevant genetic loci and early identification targets. She will outline a number of future directions aiming to test hypotheses regarding specific mechanisms through which motor abnormalities and related circuitry may be contributing to cardinal symptoms of psychotic disorders. Finally, she will discuss implications for novel prevention and treatment targets.

This free lecture is  part of the candidate review for an assistant professor position in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology.