Thilo Deckersbach, Ph.D.

My research interests in bipolar disorder focus on exploring neural moderators and mediators of response to treatment with cognitive-behavioral therapy. I graduated from Philipps-University in Marburg, Germany, with a PhD in clinical psychology and completed my clinical psychology internship in the Cognitive-Behavioral-Science Track at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in 2000. As part of my postdoctoral fellowships in the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program and the Division of Psychiatric Neuroscience Research at MGH, I received training in cognitive-behavioral therapy for bipolar disorder and functional imaging techniques such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Currently, I serve as the Director of Cognitive Neuroscience Research in the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program at MGH, and I am an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. My research projects have been funded by the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation, the Tourette Syndrome Association, and the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression as well as NIMH. Currently, I am funded by a K23 award (“Cognitive-behavior Therapy for Bipolar Disorder”). My K-Award study investigates memory impairment as a predictor of response to cognitive-behavioral therapy for depressed individuals with bipolar disorder. In addition, we explore the functional neuroanatomy of memory impairment in individuals with bipolar disorder using fMRI. Overall, my current research is focused on developing new cognitive-behavioral interventions for patients with bipolar disorder, testing their efficacy and exploring neural moderators and mediators of treatment response using state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques such as PET and MRI.