David Zald
Professor of Psychology
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
David Zald uses functional neuroimaging and neuropsychological techniques to examine and map the cognitive, affective and sensory functions of the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala and the mesolimbic dopamine system. This work particularly focuses on understanding the manner in which individual differences in the functioning of these systems contributes to personality and risk for psychopathology. A third area of interest examines the interaction of emotion and attention, and the manner in which this relationship is altered in psychiatric conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and substance dependence.
Representative Publications
- Zald, D. H., & Pardo, J. V. (1997). Emotion, olfaction and the amygdala: Amygdala activation during aversive olfaction in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,94, 4119- 4124.
- Zald, D. H., Lee, J. T., Fluegel, K., & Pardo, J. V. (1998). Aversive gustatory stimulation activates limbic circuits in humans. Brain. 121, 1143-1154.
- Small, D. M., Zald, D. H., Jones-Gotman, M., Pardo, J. V., Zatorre, R., Frey, S. & Petrides, M. (1999). Human cortical gustatory areas: A review of functional neuroimaging data. Neuroreport,10, 7 -14.
- Zald, D.H., Curtis, C.E., Folley, B. & Pardo, J.V. (2002). Prefrontal contributions to delayed spatial and object alternation: a positron emission tomography study. Neuropsychology 16, 182-189.
- Zald, D.H., Matson, D.L. & Pardo, J.V. (2002). Brain activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex correlates with individual differences in negative affect. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 99, 2450-2454.
- Zald, D.H. (2003). The human amygdala and the emotional evaluation of sensory stimuli. Brain Research Reviews, 41, 88-123.
- Zald, D.H., Boileau, I., El Deredy, W. Gunn, R., McGlone, F., Dichter, G. and Dagher, A. (2004). Dopamine transmission in the human striatum during monetary reward tasks. Journal of Neuroscience 24, 4105-4112.
- Most, S.B., Chun, M.M., Widders, D.M., Zald, D.H. (2005).Attentional rubbernecking: Cognitive control and personality in emotion-induced blindness. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 12, 654-661.
- Zald, D.H., Cowan, R.L., Riccardi, P., Baldwin, R., Ansari, M.S, Li, R., Shelby, E.S., Smith, C.E., McHugo, M., Kessler, R.M.(2008). Midbrain dopamine autoreceptor availability is inversely associated with novelty seeking traits in humans. Journal of Neuroscience 28, 14372-14378.
- Blackford, J.U., Buckholtz, J.W., Avery, S.N., Zald, D.H. (2010). A unique role for the human amygdala in novelty detection. Neuroimage. 50:1188-93
- Buckholtz, J.W., Treadway, M.T., Cowan, R.L., Woodward, N.D., Benning. SD, Li, R., Ansari, M. S., Baldwin, R.M., Schwartzman, A. N., Shelby, E.S., Smith C., Cole, D., Kessler R. M., Zald, D.H. (2010) Mesolimbic Dopamine Reward System Hypersensitivity in Individuals with Psychopathic Traits, Nature Neuroscience, 13:419-21
- Zald, D.H., Woodward, N.D., Cowan, R.L., Riccardi, P., Baldwin, R., Ansari, M.S., Li, R., Smith, C.E., Kessler, R. M. (2010). The interrelationship of dopamine D2-like receptor binding in striatal and extrastriatal brain regions in healthy humans. Neuroimage 51, 53-62.