Elizabeth Lippard
Research Interests

Dr. Lippard’s research interests focus on the intersection of behavioral and developmental neuroscience. She studies brain-behavior relationships across development, in clinical and typically developing populations, and how genes and environmental stress influence these processes. Specifically, a focus of her research has been on understanding neural systems related to risk, onset and early disease progression in affective and substance use disorders. She takes a developmental approach, using cross-sectional and longitudinal translational neuroscience paradigms, to identify genes, neural circuitry, environmental and behavioral predictors of problem behaviors and mechanisms by which predictors translate into adult phenotypes (e.g. suicide and addiction) within and across psychiatric disorders. Currently, research projects are recruiting individuals with bipolar disorder, individuals with a family member with bipolar disorder, and typically developing adolescents and young adults with participants completing clinical assessments, cognitive and personality testing, and surveys about prior experiences, and structural and functional MRI brain scans. Longitudinal studies are investigating clinical and neural trajectories associated with 1) risky behavior with a focus on risk-taking, impulsivity, and alcohol and drug use patterns; 2) behavioral and neural responses to alcohol; and 3) behavioral and neural responses to stress. Biological samples are being collected for future DNA testing. elizabeth.lippard@austin.utexas.edu

Affiliated Departments