Lilianne Mujica-Parodi 

Assistant Professor 

Research Focus

"Complex systems" is a rapidly emerging field that unifies and integrates many disciplines, from physics to economics to anthropology. Its methods describe systems that contain two or more components that interact with one another in meaningful and mathematically nontrivial ways. Using a variety of methodologies, including functional MRI, 24-hour ECG, EMG, EEG, SCR, endocrine sampling, and neurosychological testing, our Laboratory for the Study of Emotion & Cognition focuses on the relationships between four simultaneously or near-simultaneously interacting systems: neural, cardiac, endocrine, and cognitive, to better understand the neurobiology of arousal, fear, and stress. We work with both healthy and patient populations in understanding arousal and its effects on cognition. Different research protocols investigate the causes of normal variability in healthy individuals’ vulnerability and resilience to stress, as well as the etiology of mental illnesses with strong emotional components, particularly paranoid schizophrenia. Our use of multi-system protocols is grounded on the hypothesis that limbic regulatory mechanisms, which make heavy use of compensatory and feed-back mechanisms to maintain homeostasis, are likely to play an instrumental role in the development of psychosis. One important implication of this hypothesis is that the answer to the question: “What is broken?” in psychosis may not necessarily be recognized by an abnormally high or low value of any particular variable (for example, cortisol, or skin conductance response), but might instead depend upon an abnormal relationship between variables. If psychosis is indeed the result of “limbic dysregulation,” then it is theoretically possible that every value of every variable may be within normal range, but that the regulatory mechanisms that control activation and inhibition are disturbed. These regulatory mechanisms, which by definition depend upon relationships between variables rather than on individual variables, may be critical to symptom formation in an illness as complex and heterogeneous as schizophrenia.

Professional Societies Membership
Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases
Symbolic Logic Association
Society for Cognitive Science
New England Complex Systems Institute
 

Honors
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Awards, Honorable Mention 1994
Biller Graduate Research Award 1997
David Siff Award in the Philosophy of Science 1998
Niles Whiting Dissertation Fellowship Award 1998-1999
National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders Young Investigator Award 2000-2003
 

Publications

Click here to search Lilianne Mujica-Parodi's PubMed listings

Selected Peer-Reviewed Articles

• Kfia (Mujica-Parodi) LR* [1993]: The Ontological Status of Mathematical Entities: the necessity for modern physics of a reëvaluation of mathematical systems, Review of Metaphysics 47, 1: 19-42.
   
• Kfia (Mujica-Parodi) LR* [1993]: Review of Realism in Mathematics, Review of Metaphysics 47, 3: 628-9.
   
• Mujica-Parodi LR*; Malaspina D; Sackeim HA [2000]: Logical processing, affect, and delusional thought in schizophrenia Harvard Review of Psychiatry 8,2: 73-83.
   
• Mujica-Parodi LR*; Sackeim HA [2001]: Cultural invariance and the diagnosis of delusions: information processing as a neurobiologically preferable criterion, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 13, 3: 403-9.
   
• Mujica-Parodi LR*; Greenberg T; Bilder RM; Malaspina D [2001]: Emotional impact on logic deficits may underlie delusions in schizophrenia, Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society Eds. JD Moore and K Stenning. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, NJ: 669-74.
   
• Corcoran C; Mujica-Parodi LR; Yale S; Leitman D; Malaspina D [2002]: Could stress cause psychosis in vulnerable individuals? CNS Spectrums 7(1):33-42.
   
• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Corcoran C, Greenberg T, Sackeim HA, Malaspina D. [2002] Are Cognitive Symptoms of Schizophrenia Mediated by Abnormalities in Emotional Arousal? CNS Spectrums; 7(1):65-69.
   
• Malaspina D; Simon N; Berman A; Yale S; Corcoran C; Mujica-Parodi LR*; Goetz RR; Gorman J [2003]: Using figure ground perception to examine the unitary and heterogeneity models for the origins of psychopathology in schizophrenia, Schizophrenia Research Feb 1;59(2-3):297-9.

• Malaspina D, Simon N, Goetz RR, Corcoran C, Coleman E, Printz D, Mujica-Parodi L*, Wolitzky R [2004]  The reliability and clinical correlates of figure-ground perception in schizophrenia.  Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience.  16(3):  277-83.

• Malaspina D; Harkavy- Friedman J; Corcoran C; Mujica-Parodi LR*; Printz D; Gorman J; Van Heertum R.  [2004]:  Resting Neural Activity Distinguishes Subgroups of Schizophrenia Patients.  Biological Psychiatry. 56(12):  931-7.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Yeragani V, Malaspina D [2005]:  Nonlinear complexity and spectral analysis of heart rate variability in medicated and unmedicated patients with schizophrenia.  Neuropsychobiology. 51(1):  10-15.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Ravindranath B, Shen T, Sedler M, Malaspina D, Klein DF [in preparation]:  Healthy Adult Heart Rate Variability Changes in Response to Mild and Severe Stressors:  implications for researching stress vulnerability in psychiatric populations.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Greenberg T, Korgaonkar M, Tomasi D, Wagshul M, Sedler M, McEwen B, Malaspina D [in preparation]:  Functional MRI Demonstrates That Predominantly Arousal Selectivity, Rather Than Amplitude or Habituation, is Associated with Trait Anxiety and Anger.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Cordovez J, Greenberg T, Javitt D, Bilder RM, Sedler M, Malaspina D [in preparation]:  Cognitive Processing Shows Pre-attentive and Attentive Narrowing under Negative Emotional Arousal.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Vostiar I, Strey H, Brownawell B [in preparation]:  Towards Identifying a Putative Human Alarm Pheromone: Human Sweat Composition Changes Occur in Response to Fear.

Abstracts

• Mujica-Parodi LR* [2000]: Understanding delusions as a failure to adequately filter premises Schizophrenia Bulletin 41, 1-3 Jan: 42
   
• Bilder RM; Spicer J; Knuth K; Benedict M; Mujica-Parodi LR*; Krakowski M [2001]: FMRI Profiles of Novel Antipsychotics in Schizophrenia: Relations to Aggression and Impulsivity Schizophrenia Research, 49: 172.
   
• Mujica-Parodi LR*; Greenberg T; Bilder RM; Malaspina D [2001]: Emotional Impact on logic deficits may underlie delusions in schizophrenia Schizophrenia Research, 49: 141.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*; Greenberg T; Bilder RM; Malaspina D [2001]:  Emotional impact on logic deficits may underlie delusions in schizophrenia, Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society Eds. JD Moore and K Stenning.  Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, NJ:  669-74.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Yeragani V, Malaspina D [2002]:  Effects of typical versus atypical antipsychotics on heart rate variability and cardiac repolarization lability in schizophrenia patients.  American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 41:  367.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Yeragani V, Malaspina D [2003]:   Heart rate variability in medication-free patients with schizophrenia may provide clues towards understanding limbic dysregulation in psychosis.  Schizophrenia Research   Vol. 60 1-402:  256.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Ardekani B, Guilfoyle D [2003]: Variability between healthy individuals in fMRI response to affective stimuli shows distinct profiles: implications for patient studies.   Biological Psychiatry.

• Ravindranath B., Zhong Y., Chon K. Mujica-Parodi LR.*  [2004]:  Using Principal Dynamic Modes in Evaluating Psychological Variables.  Biomedical Engineering Society.

• Winburn M., Greenberg T., Kilpatrick J., Mujica-Parodi LR* [2004]: Emotional Response Variability to Affective Stimuli Shows Distinct Profiles in fMRI.  Biomedical Engineering Society.

• Mujica-Parodi LR*, Greenberg T, Kilpatrick JF [2004]:  A Multi-Modal Study of Cognitive Processing Under Negative Emotional Arousal.  Cognitive Science Society.

• Parvaz MA, Jain V, deLeon S, Squires N, Mujica-Parodi LR* [2004]:  An Electroencephalography Study of Neural Preattentive Novel-Stimulus Identification under Neutral and Arousal Conditions.  Biomedical Engineering Society.

• Cordovez J; Greenberg T; Mujica-Parodi LR* [2005].  System Identification for the Inhibitory and Excitatory Components of the Arousal Response  Biomedical Engineering Society.

• Korgaonkar M S, Greenberg T, Tomasi D, Wagshul M E, Mujica-Parodi LR* [2005]: A Critical Comparison of Different Methods of Analysis for Individual Variability Studies Utilizing fMRI Regions of Interest. International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Miami (FL); 1449.

Invited Talks

Invited Articles

• Mujica-Parodi (Kfia) LR * [1993]:  Review of Realism in Mathematics, Review of Metaphysics 47, 3:  628-9
• Mujica-Parodi LR*; Sackeim HA [2001]: Reply to Dr. John Cutting and Dr. Luis Fabrega, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 13, 3: 416-9.

Research Support

• LR Mujica-Parodi (PI)                                                      4/1/2005-3/31/2008                 $863,987
  Office of Naval Research                                                      
  Variability Between Individuals with Respect to Cognitive and Physiological Resilience to Stress Under Laboratory and High-Stress Contexts
  The major goals of this project are to extend our previous multi-modal study of individual variability in resilience to stress, to determine whether resilience to mild artificial stress induced in the laboratory predicts the neurological, cardiac, endocrine, and cognitive effects of marked acute stress induced by a first-time skydive.

• LR Mujica-Parodi (PI)                                                       3/1/2005-2/28/2006                 $10,000
  General Clinical Research Center, SUNYSB
  A Systems Study of Limbic Dysregulation in Schizophrenia
  The major goal of this project is to provide pilot data to test the hypothesis that limbic dysregulation between the medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala can account for vulnerability to arousal (autonomic and endocrine) in both positive and negative symptom patients with DSM-IV schizophrenia. 

• LR Mujica-Parodi (PI)                                                       8/1/2006-1/31/2007                 $642,000
  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
  Olfactory Cues to Conspecific Stress:  an fMRI study
  The major goal of this project is to establish the physiological/neurobiological effects of human alarm pheromones.

• Marc Taylor (PI); LR Mujica-Parodi (Co-PI)                           04/01/2005-03/31/2007           $226,392
  Office of Naval Research
  Individual differences in neural reactivity and cognitive performance during Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training
  The major goals of this project are to extend our previous multi-modal study of individual variability in resilience to stress, to determine whether resilience to mild artificial stress induced in the laboratory predicts the neurological, cardiac, endocrine, and cognitive effects of marked chronic stress induced by participation in the U.S. Navy’s 12-day Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training, which closely simulates a prisoner of war experience. Dr. Mujica-Parodi is responsible for the design of the project, as well as the analysis of fMRI and EKG data.

• Wayne Ensign (PI); LR Mujica-Parodi (Co-PI)                        04/01/2005-03/31/2008           $85,795
  Office of Naval Research
  Polymorphic Expression of Tyrosine Hydroxylase and the B2 Adrenergic Receptor:  Their Effects of the Variation among Individual Responses to Acute Stress and Immune Function
  The major goals of this project are to investigate the relationships between immune function and stress resilience as well as genetics and stress resilience, using the well-characterized subject sample tested by our protocol, Variability Between Individuals with Respect to Cognitive and Physiological Resilience to Stress Under Laboratory and High-Stress Contexts.  Dr. Mujica-Parodi is responsible for the collection of data as well as the processing of samples.

• LR Mujica-Parodi (PI) 3/15/2002-2/14/2005
  Office of Naval Research
  Variability Between Individuals with Respect to Cognitive and Physiological Resilience to Stress
  The major goals of this project are to examine the relationship between neural, cardiac, and endocrine stress reactivity, as well as the effects of stress reactivity on cognition.
   
• RO1, Donald Klein (PI); LR Mujica-Parodi (Consultant) 12/01/2003-12/01/2005
  National Institutes of Mental Health
  Psychobiology of IV Naloxone & Lactate in Normals
  The major goal of this project is to test the hypothesis that impairing the endogenous opioid system may render healthy individuals vulnerable to lactate in a fashion similar to the effects on Panic Disorder.

• Young Investigator Award, LR Mujica-Parodi (PI) 07/01/2000-06/30/2002
  National Association for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression
  The Formation and Maintenance of Delusional Beliefs in Schizophrenia: a study of information processing.
  The major goal of this project is to investigate the roles of fear-reactivity and reasoning in paranoid individuals.

• LR Mujica-Parodi (PI) 01/01/2001-12/31/2002
  Psychiatric Institute Research Support Grant
  Neuroimaging of Pre-attentive versus Attentive Neural Gating in Healthy Adults
  The major goal of this project was to investigate the relationship between pre-attentive sensory gating and selective attention in healthy adults.

• LR Mujica-Parodi (PI) 01/01/1999-12/31/2000
  Frontier Fund for Scientific Research
  The major goal of this project was to develop an instrument to measure the effects of emotional content on logical processing and selectivity of information-use.