معرفی
Clara Hellner is an Adjunct Professor at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Clinical Neuroscience, where she is part of the ESSI (Emotion Regulation, Self-injury, Suicide, and Intervention) research group led by Johan Bjureberg. She previously served as Director of the Centre for Psychiatry Research (2012-2017) and has been R&D Director at Stockholm County Health Care Area since 2017. In 2025, she additionally assumed the role of Presidential Advisor in Life Science at Karolinska Institutet, where she facilitates collaborations across academia, healthcare, and industry sectors.
Dr. Hellner holds a Medical degree (1987) and PhD (2001) from Karolinska Institutet. She was licensed to practice medicine in 1992 and obtained specialist certification in child and adolescent psychiatry in 2003.
Her primary research investigates emotion regulation deficits and impulsivity in adolescents and young adults, focusing on associated behavioral outcomes including nonsuicidal self-injury, suicide, substance use, problem gambling, and antisocial behavior. She employs diverse methodologies spanning clinical trials, epidemiological studies, neurobiological investigations, and machine learning approaches to develop and evaluate interventions. Her work bridges psychiatry, neuroscience, and public health, with strong emphasis on translational applications.
Analysis of her recent publications reveals concentrated focus on: 1) Digital interventions for self-injury and emotion regulation, 2) Machine learning applications in suicide prediction, 3) Longitudinal patterns of depression and self-harm, 4) Neurocognitive aspects of pain processing in self-injury, and 5) Socioeconomic determinants of mental healthcare utilization. Her research consistently demonstrates innovation in treatment development and rigorous methodological approaches across clinical and population-based studies.
Dr. Hellner has secured substantial research funding including:
- Preventing suicide and involuntary care in youth (Swedish Research Council, 2023-2026)
- Effect of Primary care Online Emotion-regulation Treatment (POET) (Swedish Research Council, 2023-2026)
- Life trajectories in offspring of parents with psychiatric diagnoses (Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare, 2024-2026)
- Brain and Immune System Function Associated with Self-Inflicted Pain (Swedish Research Council, 2020-2022)
- Migration, vitamin D-deficiency and autism risk (Swedish Research Council, 2016-2018)
She leads research activities within the ESSI group which develops and tests interventions for emotion regulation difficulties. Her leadership in establishing Karolinska Institutet's Centre for Psychiatry Research created critical infrastructure for clinical psychiatry research in Stockholm.
