Carrie E Bearden

Carrie Elyse Bearden is an American psychologist and academic. She is a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the UCLA Center for the Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States, a clinical research program for youth at high risk for psychotic disorders. She is most known for her research taking a ‘genetics first’ approach to study brain mechanisms underlying the development of serious mental illness. Her work has identified biological convergence between genetically and clinically defined high-risk populations.

Early life and education Bearden was born in Houston, Texas and grew up in Hawaii Kai, Hawaii. She moved to Milpitas, California at age 13 and attended Milpitas High School. She then earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1993, following which she joined the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory at the University of Hawaii as a Research Intern, where she studied dolphin communication. She then became a Research Associate at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, working for the MacArthur Network on Development and Psychopathology. She then obtained a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Bearden serves as the director of the UCLA Center for the Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States

Rare neurogenetic disorders

Biomarkers for psychosis Bearden's research in the identification of biomarkers for psychosis in at-risk youth has contributed to the development of early intervention strategies and personalized treatment plans for individuals at risk of developing psychotic disorders. Through epidemiological studies, her work revealed that abnormalities in neuromotor function, language, and cognition during early development can predict schizophrenia later in life. Based on these early findings she has conducted prospective longitudinal studies both independently and collectively as part of the North American Prodromal Longitudinal Study (NAPLS) multisite consortium on youth at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis, identifying brain-based biomarkers that predict outcomes in at-risk youth both at baseline and progressively over time. She co-leads the Psychosis-Risk Outcomes Network (ProNET) global multisite study of youth at CHR for psychosis, part of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership Schizophrenia (AMP-SCZ).

Awards and honors 2002 – A.E. Bennett Neuropsychiatric Research Award for Clinical Science, Society of Biological Psychiatry 2003, 2006 – Young Investigator Award, National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders 2006 – Samuel Gershon Junior Investigator Award, International Society for Bipolar Disorders 2012 – UCLA Semel Institute Teaching Award, Outstanding Research Mentor Award 2015 – Joanne and George Miller Family Endowed Term chair, UCLA Brain Research Institute 2016 – Fellow, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2017 – Joel Elkes Research Award, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2020 – Clarivate Analytics, most highly cited researchers (Top 1%, Jan 2010– Dec 2020) 2022 – George M Thompson Award for Distinguished Service, SOBP Women's Leadership Group (team award) 2022 – 33rd H.W. Magoun Annual Distinguished Lectureship, Brain Research Institute

Selected articles Sanders, S. J., Sahin, M., Hostyk, J., Thurm, A., Jacquemont, S., Avillach, P.... & Bearden, C. E. (2019). A framework for the investigation of rare genetic disorders in neuropsychiatry. Nature medicine, 25(10), 1477–1487. Ching, C. R., Gutman, B. A., Sun, D., Villalon Reina, J., Ragothaman, A., Isaev, D.... & Bearden, C. E. (2020). Mapping subcortical brain alterations in 22q11. 2 deletion syndrome: Effects of deletion size and convergence with idiopathic neuropsychiatric illness. American Journal of Psychiatry, 177(7), 589–600. Davies, R. W., Fiksinski, A. M., Breetvelt, E. J., Williams, N. M., Hooper, S. R., Monfeuga, T.... & Vorstman, J. A. (2020). Using common genetic variation to examine phenotypic expression and risk prediction in 22q11. 2 deletion syndrome. Nature medicine, 26(12), 1912–1918. Sun, D., Ching, C. R., Lin, A., Forsyth, J. K., Kushan, L., Vajdi, A.... & Bearden, C. E. (2020). Large-scale mapping of cortical alterations in 22q11. 2 deletion syndrome: Convergence with idiopathic psychosis and effects of deletion size. Molecular psychiatry, 25(8), 1822–1834. Forsyth, J. K., Nachun, D., Gandal, M. J., Geschwind, D. H., Anderson, A. E., Coppola, G., & Bearden, C. E. (2020). Synaptic and gene regulatory mechanisms in schizophrenia, autism, and 22q11. 2 copy number variant–mediated risk for neuropsychiatric disorders. Biological psychiatry, 87(2), 150–163. Moreau, C. A., Ching, C. R., Kumar, K., Jacquemont, S., & Bearden, C. E. (2021). Structural and functional brain alterations revealed by neuroimaging in CNV carriers. Current opinion in genetics & development, 68, 88–98.