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Katherine Damme

Katherine Damme

Assistant Professor - Department of Psychology

Research Interests: How adolescent brain, pubertal, and cognitive development translates into pathways of risk for psychopathology; promoting healthy neural and cognitive development; Methods- structural and functional MRI and longitudinal modeling

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Professional Preparation

PhD - Psychology: Brain, Behavior, and Cognition
Northwestern University - 2018
MS - Psychology
Northwestern University - 2015
BA - Psychology: Research Focus in Cognitive Neuroscience
Vanderbilt University - 2009

Research Areas

Neurodevelopment, Adolescent development, Risk for psychopathology, Interventions to promote healthy neurodevelopment

Publications

Residence in Communities with Higher Violent Crimes Associated with Lower Reward-Related Brain Function 2025 - Journal Article
Tailoring clinical goals to the individual is a good idea, and lessons from brain science can help. 2025 - Journal Article
A Developmental Perspective on Early and Current Motor Abnormalities and Psychotic-Like Symptoms 2025 - Journal Article
Physical and mental health in adolescence: novel insights from a transdiagnostic examination of FitBit data in the ABCD study 2024 - Journal Article
Emotional tone in clinical high risk for psychosis: novel insights from a natural language analysis approach. 2024 - Journal Article
A Developmental Perspective on Early and Current Motor Abnormalities and Psychotic-Like Symptoms 2024 - Journal Article
Longitudinal study of peer victimization, social support, and mental health during early adolescence. 2024 - Journal Article
The impact of menarche on hippocampal mechanisms of severity of psychotic-like experiences in the ABCD study. 2024 - Journal Article

Appointments

Assistant Professor
University of Texas -Dallas [2024–Present]
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Institute for Innovation in Developmental Sciences, Northwestern University [2021–2024]
NIMH Mental Health, Earlier T32 Postdoc Training Program
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Psychology Department, Northwestern University [2018–2020]
Adolescent Development and Preventative Treatments Lab

Affiliations

Center for Vital Longevity
2024/08
External Fellow
Society for Biological Psychiatry
2022/08
Committee Member

Funding

Estrogen and Mechanisms of Psychotic-like Experiences in the Transition to Adolescence
- National Institutes of Mental Health [2024/08–2026/07]
The proposed analyses will leverage the strengths of the ABCD study, capturing this rich variability in estrogen in late childhood and early coupled with critical neural, cognitive, and symptom longitudinally within biological females. This rich dataset will allow us to examine estrogen comprehensively within biological females and whether there is sex specificity to the impact of estrogen levels on PLEs by examining biological males for whom estrogen levels are available. Although not everyone with PLEs will transition to psychosis, these symptoms do reflect underlying psychosis vulnerability in the premorbid period, and tracking changes in PLE levels in the premorbid period may be informative in the early mechanism that may modulate vulnerability related to formal psychotic disorders as a function of adolescent development. Understanding the mechanisms of these estrogen effects within their developmental context will provide insights into how (structural, functional, cognitive, direct clinical impact), when (timing/developmental context), where (hippocampal subvolume), and for whom (sex-specificity) to target intervention to reduce or delay the transition to psychosis.