Early N³ Lab

Early Neuroimaging, Neuroimmune, and Neuropsychology (N³) Lab

Location and Contact Information

Early N³ Lab
622 West 168th St
New York, NY 10032
United States
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Principal Investigator

The overarching goal of Early Neuroimaging, Neuroimmune, and Neuropsychology Lab (Early N3 Lab) is to identify early immune, brain, and neuropsychological antecedents of childhood psychiatric risk to reduce the time to intervention for young children. This is accomplished through two complementary lines of study involving national and international birth cohorts, and clinical samples of pregnant women. Dr. Marisa Spann currently has a NIMH R01 to study the effects of maternal immune activation (infection and inflammation) on early brain and emotion regulation development in a Finnish national birth cohort and a newly recruited sample of pregnancy women at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She also has another NIMH R01 to identify circuit-based markers of regulatory deficits that are passed inter-generationally and persist from infancy to early childhood.

Lab Members

Director

  • Marisa N. Spann, PhD, MPH

    • Herbert Irving Associate Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry)

    Marisa Spann, PhD, MPH, is a Herbert Irving Associate Professor of Medical Psychology in the Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC). Dr. Spann is a clinical neuropsychologist with specialty training in developmental neuroimaging and perinatal epidemiology. She obtained her PhD in clinical psychology at George Washington University. She went on to pursue a clinical neuropsychology postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine, an MPH at Yale School of Public Health, and a NIH-funded T32 research postdoctoral fellowship in Translational Child Psychiatry at CUIMC.

    The overarching goal of Dr. Spann’s research is to identify early immune, brain, and neuropsychological antecedents of childhood psychiatric risk to reduce the time to intervention for young children. She accomplishes this through two complementary lines of study involving national and international birth cohorts, and clinical samples of pregnant women at CUIMC. Dr. Spann is the director of the Early N3 Lab.

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Affiliate Researcher

  • Vinus Mahmoodi, PhD

    • Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at CUIMC

    Venus Mahmoodi, PhD is a clinical psychologist, researcher, and advocate for women’s mental health. She is an Assistant Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University and an Assistant Attending Psychologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Mahmoodi is a clinical researcher in the Early Neuroimaging, Neuroimmune, and Neuropsychology (Early N3) Lab, where her research focuses on the perinatal experiences of mothers, focusing mental health, acculturation and discrimination, and biological sequelae. Her research also focuses on perinatal depression in Muslim women, including treatments that integrate Islamic spirituality. In addition to research, she provides clinical care to women across the reproductive lifespan in The Women’s Program at CUIMC. Dr. Mahmoodi is also an adjunct faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she teaches graduate level courses in perinatal mental health and mentors students in research. Dr. Mahmoodi completed her PhD in clinical psychology with an emphasis in women’s neuroscience at Palo Alto University and Stanford University. She completed her APA-accredited predoctoral internship at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in NYC and her postdoctoral training at the Seleni Institute.

Postdoctoral Researchers

  • Cristin Holland, PhD

    Dr. Holland is a postdoctoral research fellow whose overarching research interests focus on early growth trajectories of social-emotional development and identification of precursors to social-emotional vulnerabilities in order facilitate early intervention and overall developmental and family outcomes.

Alumni

  • Erica Lambeth, BA

  • Antonette Davids, BA

  • Kristiana Barbato, BA

  • Ezra Aydin, PhD

  • Isabelle Mueller, PhD

  • Ayanna Gilmore, MA

  • Manya Balachander, BS

  • Sanjana Murthy, BS

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