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Maria Ironside, DPhil.


Associate Investigator, LIBR
Research Assistant Professor, The University of Tulsa
CURRICULUM VITAE
GOOGLE SCHOLAR

The Ironside Laboratory


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Our Research Approach


Dr. Ironside’s main interests include parsing process dysfunction in comorbid anxiety and depression. Her current work examines mechanisms of action of non-invasive neuromodulation as a treatment for psychiatric disorders. Dr. Ironside uses behavioral and neuroimaging measures to investigate acute effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on threat sensitivity in comorbid depression and anxiety with a view to establishing potential biomarkers of treatment response. Dr. Ironside will be extending this work using a pharmacological probe to target threat sensitivity in depression, anxiety and comorbid anxiety and depression. The goal of this research program is to improve the characterization of treatment targets in depressive subtypes, inform patient selection for future clinical trials and, ultimately, treatment selection in the clinic.​

We're Hiring!
​Join the Ironside Lab as Post-Doctoral Research Scholar

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CONTACT DR. IRONSIDE

Research Program Highlights


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Main Questions

Is threat sensitivity the underlying process dysfunction that makes comorbid anxiety and depression so difficult to treat? Can we modulate threat sensitivity using neuromodulation to increase top-down control of threat responses? Is threat sensitivity the mechanism by which prefrontal neuromodulation reduces anxious and/or depressive symptoms? ​
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Approach

Acute effects of neuromodulation and pharmacology are probed using behavioral and neuroimaging measurements designed to capture threat sensitivity.
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Future Directions

The lab’s next major project uses a pharmacological probe of threat sensitivity in anxiety, depression and comorbid anxiety and depression to establish associated brain circuits and processes that could serve as treatment targets.

Scientific Background


​​Dr. Ironside received her Bachelor’s degree from Trinity College Dublin in 2004. After some time working in the public sector in London she subsequently completed two Master’s degrees in Cognitive and Decision Sciences and Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London and Birkbeck. It was there that she began working with neuromodulation under the supervision of Dr. Vincent Walsh at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. She then completed her doctorate in Psychiatry at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Harmer (Dept. Psychiatry) and Dr. Jacinta O’Shea (Nuffield Dept of Clinical Neurosciences). Her doctoral work applied neuromodulation to models of acute effects typically used in psychopharmacology, using behavioral and functional imaging measures and has been published in Biological Psychiatry and JAMA Psychiatry.

Dr. Ironside next completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McLean Hospital/ Harvard Medical School, under the mentorship of Dr. Diego Pizzagalli. During this fellowship she led two large clinical multimodal neuroimaging studies in major depression, examining sex differences and effects of stress in current and remitted depression. During this time she also worked on a cross-species investigation of approach-avoidance-conflict in major depressive disorder, in collaboration with Ann Graybiel’s non-human primate lab at MIT. In 2018 Dr. Ironside was awarded a Rappaport Mental Health Award to continue her neuromodulation work in patients and was promoted to Instructor/Assistant Neuroscientist by Harvard Medical School/McLean.
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Dr. Ironside recently made the move to LIBR, to start a position as an Associate Investigator. She is continuing her work on the acute mechanisms of prefrontal neuromodulation with a view to carrying out mechanistic clinical trials of neuromodulation treatment in psychiatry.

Meet Our Team


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Tate Poplin
Research Assistant

Selected Publications


Ironside M, Amemori KI, McGrath CL, Pedersen ML, Kang MS, Amemori S, Frank MJ, Graybiel AM, Pizzagalli DA. Approach-Avoidance Conflict in Major Depressive Disorder: Congruent Neural Findings in Humans and Nonhuman Primates. Biol Psychiatry. 2020 Mar 1;87(5):399-408.
Ironside M, Browning M, Ansari TL, Harvey CJ, Sekyi-Djan MN, Bishop SJ, Harmer CJ, O'Shea J. Effect of Prefrontal Cortex Stimulation on Regulation of Amygdala Response to Threat in Individuals With Trait Anxiety: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. 2019 Jan 1;76(1):71-78.
Esmaeilpour Z, Shereen AD, Ghobadi-Azbari P, Datta A, Woods AJ, Ironside M, O'Shea J, Kirk U, Bikson M, Ekhtiari H. Methodology for tDCS integration with fMRI. Hum Brain Mapp. 2020 May;41(7):1950-1967.
Ironside M, Perlo S. Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for the Treatment of Depression: a Review of the Candidate Mechanisms of Action. Curr Behav Neurosci Rep. 2018;5:26–35.
Ironside M, Kumar P, Kang MS, Pizzagalli DA. Brain mechanisms mediating effects of stress on reward sensitivity. Curr Opin Behav Sci. 2018 Aug;22:106-113.
Ironside M, O'Shea J, Cowen PJ, Harmer CJ. Frontal Cortex Stimulation Reduces Vigilance to Threat: Implications for the Treatment of Depression and Anxiety. Biol Psychiatry. 2016 May 15;79(10):823-830.
Ironside M, Admon R, Maddox SA, Mehta M, Douglas S, Olson DP, Pizzagalli DA. Inflammation and depressive phenotypes: evidence from medical records from over 12 000 patients and brain morphology. Psychol Med. 2020 Dec;50(16):2790-2798.
FULL LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

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    • INVESTIGATORS >
      • PRINCIPAL >
        • ROBIN AUPPERLE
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        • WESLEY THOMPSON
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      • ASSOCIATE >
        • LEANDRA FIGUEROA-HALL
        • MARIA IRONSIDE
        • MASAYA MISAKI
        • AKI TSUCHIYAGAITO
        • HAIXIA ZHENG
      • AFFILIATE >
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