Investigator Psychiatry, Mass General Research Institute

Associate Professor of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School

asphyxiation; attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity; brain injury; cerebellar cortex; cerebellum; concussion+; corpus callosum; intimate partner violence; memory short-term; motor skills; neuroimaging; neuropsychology; postural balance; prefrontal cortex; time perception

Dr. Valera uses a range of methodologies to undertsand the effects of brain injuries (from blunt force trauma as well as strangulation-related asphyxiation, "Concussion+") in women who have experienced intimate partner violence.  As a pioneer in the field for over 25 years, Dr. Valera's work has provided much of the minimal data linking partner inflicted brain injuries to negative cognitive, psychological and neural outcomes. This research has implications for women who have been physically abused engaging with law enforcement, judges and domestic violence advocates. 

Dr. Valera has also researched the neurobiology of ADHD in adults. Though most ADHD research has focused on frontal-striatal dysfunction, the discovery of cerebellar abnormalities in both structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), including Dr. Valera's own work, provides compelling evidence that the cerebellum plays a critical role in the pathophysiology of ADHD.  Dr. Valera's work has focused on examining the functional and structural integrity of corticocerebellar circuits in adult ADHD in order to elucidate their role in deficits, such as motor coordination, temporal processing, and working memory. She uses structural and functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and varied connectivity analyses in conjunction with behavioral motor assessments to examine corticocerebellar network abnormalities in ADHD.  As there is a growing literature supporting the involvement of the cerebellum in psychiatric disorders in addition to ADHD, she hopes to eventually investigate the role of the cerebellum in other disorders as well.