Andrea Pelletier-Baldelli

Dr. Andrea Pelletier-Baldelli is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she works with the Child and Adolescent Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program (CHAAMP) and the Women’s Mood Disorder Program. Her research examines how social behavior and motivation influence adolescent neurodevelopment and risk for severe mental illness, utilizing multimodal assessments and neuroimaging to identify developmental pathways of psychopathology.

Her work emphasizes vulnerabilities during the peripubertal period, focusing on:

• Stress response mechanisms (autonomic and endocrine)
• Neural connectivity patterns during peer evaluation
• Psychosis risk biomarkers
• Social reward processing

Key article trends include longitudinal studies on neuroimaging markers, stress-induced connectivity changes, and psychosocial assessments in at-risk youth. Her research spans adolescent psychiatry, neurodevelopmental disorders, and clinical neuroscience.

Scientific contributions include:

• Development of specialized assessment tools (NSI-SR, PINS)
• Investigations into cerebellar-thalamic tract development
• Analysis of HPA axis dysfunction in psychosis
• Studies on postural sway as a biomarker
• Research on intrinsic religiosity and brain morphology