Research Feature - Mapping An Anxiety Spectrum

I became involved in ADAA as a postdoctoral fellow. I joined ADAA because I appreciate the close links between research and clinical practice that can be found at ADAA. There are few other organizations that are as accessible to patients, providers and researchers, and that help bridge the gaps between these individuals.

I enjoy the close, supportive community, and the opportunities that exist for members of all levels to get involved and have their work promoted and disseminated.

As a clinical psychologist engaged primarily in research at this stage in my career, ADAA helps keep me in touch with the patient and clinician experience, which helps in crafting better research questions. It also helps me connect with some of the most pre-eminent researchers in my field.

I am thrilled and humbled to have been selected as the recipient of the 2021 Donald F. Klein Early Career Investigator Award. I am also grateful for a recent 5-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, which will allow my lab to continue our work on comorbidity load in the anxiety disorders.

Dr. MacNamara is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University.

Research Interests:
Emotions convey important information about events and people in our environment. They motivate us and are essential to survival (e.g., fear motivates a fight or flight response). However, when an emotional response is not well-matched to the situation (e.g., the sound of a car backfiring elicits fear), it ceases to be adaptive, and may hinder a person’s ability to function effectively in society. People with anxiety and depression struggle with emotional responses more than others. Why is this and how can we best help these individuals?

Work in the Multimethod Affect and Cognition (MAC) lab uses brain and psychophysiological measures such as event-related potentials (ERPs), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), eyeblink startle and skin conductance response to investigate emotions in psychiatric health and disease. One aim of this work is to characterize the parameters of emotional response and the cognitive factors that can affect this in healthy individuals. Another aim of this work is to better understand how these factors go awry in psychiatric disorders. The long-term goal of this research is to reduce the cost and suffering associated with emotional disorders (e.g., anxiety, depression) by improving diagnosis and guiding new treatments.

Dr. Annmarie MacNamara (Texas A&M University) is a clinical affective neuroscientist who uses fMRI and EEG to examine emotion generation and regulation across the internalizing psychopathology spectrum. Consistent with the mission of ADAA, Dr. MacNamara's long-term goal is to reduce the suffering and cost associated with emotional disorders by bringing diagnosis and treatment more in line with underlying pathophysiology. Dr. MacNamara is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Psychophysiology, a member of the NIH F-16 study section and was recently designated as a "Rising Star" by the Association for Psychological Science.