Julia Kim-Cohen, Yale Psychology Faculty

Broadly, the goal of my research program is to understand the processes by which early experiences lead to the development of psychopathology or resilience. In addition to studying the impact of adversities such as poverty and child maltreatment, my work focuses primarily on maternal depression as a risk factor for children’s emotional, behavioral, and cognitive development. To better understand the link between maternal depression and children’s mental health outcomes, my research addresses several questions: Why do mothers become depressed? How does maternal depression influence the quality of caregiving that children experience? Which co-occurring mental disorders in mothers elevate risk for child psychopathology? By what genetic and non-genetic mechanisms is risk transmitted to children of depressed mothers?

My current work focuses on investigating emotion processing as an outcome of exposure to early adversity as well as a predictor of future mental health functioning in children of depressed mothers. Using DNA samples to measure candidate genes and utilizing the twin design to parse genetic vs. environmental influences, I seek to uncover the influence of genetics and experience in the development of emotion processing and psychopathology.

Sample Publications

Kim-Cohen, J., Caspi, A., Taylor, A., Williams, B., Newcombe, R., Craig, I. W., & Moffitt, T. E. (in press). MAOA, early adversity, and gene-environment interaction predicting children’s mental health: New evidence and a meta-analysis. Molecular Psychiatry, published online 27 June 2006.

Rutter, M., Kim-Cohen, J., & Maughan, B. (2006). Continuities and discontinuities in psychopathology between childhood and adult life. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 276-295.

Kim-Cohen, J., Moffitt, T. E., Taylor, A., Pawlby, S. J., & Caspi, A. (2005). Maternal depression and child antisocial behavior: Nature and nurture effects. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 173-181.

Kim-Cohen, J., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., & Taylor, A. (2004). Genetic and environmental processes in young children's resilience to socioeconomic deprivation. Child Development, 75, 651-668.

Kim-Cohen, J., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Harrington, H. L., Milne, B., & Poulton, R. (2003). Prior juvenile diagnoses in adults with mental disorder: Developmental follow-back of a prospective-longitudinal cohort. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60, 709-717.