Pearl Chiu is an associate professor at Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, the department of psychology and the department of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at Virginia Tech University. She specializes in the emerging field of computational psychiatry.

Chiu’s research team studies the neuroscience of how, when, and why humans make and change their decisions, and how decision-making is affected by mental health disorders such as depression, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and autism

Using functional neuroimaging, behavioral tasks, and quantitative analytic methods, Chiu’s group aims both to understand the brain mechanisms involved in healthy decision-making and to specify how these pathways may be disrupted and repaired in disorders such as depression and addiction that affect decision-making.

Expertise: Decision-making, decision neuroscience, computational psychiatry, depression, substance dependence, social influences on decision-making, motivation and incentives

Location: Roanoke, Va.

Email: pearlchiu@vtc.vt.edu

Heard on WNVT Virginia Tech Public Radio: VT Risk Study Shows We’re Influenced by Those Around Us