Christopher Monk

Adolescence is a period of exceptional mental capacities relative to earlier ages, but it is also an age of increased risk for emotion-based mental conditions, such as depression and anxiety. The ultimate goal of this research program is to better understand why some adolescents effectively navigate their emotionally-charged surroundings, while others struggle and a subset experience the first onset of long-term mental disorders. Through a better understanding of the behavioral and neural events that underlie the emergence of these pathways, it may be possible to design better diagnostic tests, implement novel treatments that more precisely target underlying pathophysiology, and potentially prevent initial onset through early intervention.

Research Interests:
Behavioral and brain-based measures to examine affective-cognitive processing during adolescent development. In particular, this research focuses on how these responses vary across ages in normally developing youth as well as those with or at risk for psychopathology.

Teaching Interests:
Developmental psychology, cognitive development and developmental neuroscience.

Publications

• Hardi FA, Goetschius LG, Tillem S,…Monk CS. Early childhood household instability, adolescent structural neural network architecture, and young adulthood depression: a 21-year longitudinal study. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2023;61:101253. doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101253
• Tillem S, Dotterer HL, Goetschius LG,…Monk CS, et al. Antisocial behavior is associated with reduced frontoparietal network efficiency in youth. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2023;18(1):nsad026. doi:10.1093/scan/nsad026
• Hardi FA, Goetschius LG, McLoyd V,…Monk CS. Adolescent functional network connectivity prospectively predicts adult anxiety symptoms related to perceived COVID-19 economic adversity. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2023;64(6):918-929. doi:10.1111/jcpp.13749
• Goetschius LG, McLoyd VC, Hein TC, Mitchell C, Hyde LW, Monk CS. School connectedness as a protective factor against childhood exposure to violence and social deprivation: a longitudinal study of adaptive and maladaptive outcomes. Dev Psychopathol. 2023;35(3):1219-1234. doi:10.1017/S0954579421001140
• Roberts AG, Peckins MK, Gard AM,…Monk CS, et al. Amygdala reactivity during socioemotional processing and cortisol reactivity to a psychosocial stressor. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2022;144:105855. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105855
• Gard AM, Brooks-Gunn J, McLanahan SS, Mitchell C, Monk CS, Hyde LW. Deadly gun violence, neighborhood collective efficacy, and adolescent neurobehavioral outcomes. PNAS Nexus. 2022;1(3):pgac061. doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac061
• Murray L, Lopez-Duran NL, Mitchell C, Monk CS, Hyde LW. Antisocial behavior is associated with reduced frontoparietal activity to loss in a population-based sample of adolescents. Psychol Med. 2023;53(8):3652-3660. doi:10.1017/S0033291722000307
• Calabrese JR, Goetschius LG, Murray L,…Monk CS. Mapping frontostriatal white matter tracts and their association with reward-related ventral striatum activation in adolescence. Brain Res. 2022;1780:147803. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2022.147803
• Hardi FA, Goetschius LG, Peckins MK,…Monk CS. Differential developmental associations of material hardship exposure and adolescent amygdala-prefrontal cortex white matter connectivity. J Cogn Neurosci. 2022;34(10):1866-1891. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_01801
• Doom JR, Peckins MK, Hein TC,…Monk CS. Differential associations of parental harshness and parental disengagement with overall cortisol output at 15 years: implications for adolescent mental health. Dev Psychopathol. 2022;34(1):129-146. doi:10.1017/S0954579420000954