Deanna Barch

Deanna Barch

Vice Dean of Research
Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences Professor of Radiology​
Gregory B. Couch Professor of Psychiatry
PhD, University of Illinois
MA, University of Illinois
BA, Northwestern University
View All People

Contact info:

Mailing address:

  • Washington University CB 1125 One Brookings Drive St. Louis, MO 63130-4899

Professor Barch studies cognitive and language deficits in disorders such as schizophrenia, and the neurobiological mechanisms that contribute to such deficits. Her research includes behavioral, pharmacological, and neuroimaging studies with typical and clinical populations.

Barch's current research is focused on understanding the interplay among cognition, emotion, and brain function to better understand the deficits in behavior and cognition found in illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression.  In particular, Barch is interested in determining the cognitive, emotional and neural bases of risk for the development of schizophrenia and depression, potentially as a means of developing better preventative approaches. She uses functional MRI, structural MRI, and cognitive neuroscience methods to examine neural basis of disturbances in cognitive control and emotional processing in individuals with schizophrenia and those at risk for the development of schizophrenia, as well as in individuals with mood disorders. Further, her work includes a focus on the ways in which early adversity (e.g., poverty, stress, and disparities in access to health care) shape early brain development and subsequent risk for mental health challenges.

Selected Publications

Barch, D. M., Harms, M. P., Tillman, R., *Hawkey, E., & Luby, J. L. (in press). Early childhood depression, emotion regulation, episodic memory and hippocampal development. Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Karcher, N. R., Barch, D. M., Avenoveli, S., Savill, M., Huber, R. S., Sher, K. J., & Loewy, R. L. (in press). Validation of the prodromal-questionnaire-brief in children:  Measuring self-reported psychotic-like experiences in childhood. JAMA Psychiatry.

Barch, D. M., Belden, A. C., Tillman, R., Whalen, D. & Luby, J. L. (2018). Early adverse childhood experiences, inferior frontal gyrus connectivity and the trajectory of externalizing psychopathology. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 57, 183-190. 

Sheffield, J. M., Kandala, S., Tamminga, C. A., Pearlson, G. D., Keshavan, M. S., Sweeney, J. A., Clementz, B. A., Lerman-Sinkoff, D. B., Hill, S. K., & Barch, D. M. (2017). Transdiagnostic relations between functional brain network integrity and cognition. JAMA Psychiatry, 74, 605-613.

Moran, E. K., *Culbreth, A. J., & Barch, D. M. (2017). Ecological momentary assessment of negative symptoms in schizophrenia: Relationships to effort based decision making and reinforcement learning. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 126, 96-105. PMCID: PMC5433621.