Lauren Luther

Lauren Luther is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research focuses on severe mental illness, particularly negative symptoms (avolition, anhedonia) in psychosis spectrum disorders. She employs a multimodal approach integrating cognitive neuroscience (EEG, fMRI), mobile health technologies, and computational modeling to understand reward processing deficits and develop targeted interventions. Her experimental therapeutics program examines neural and psychosocial mechanisms sustaining negative symptoms to inform novel treatment strategies.

Recent publications emphasize transdiagnostic biomarkers, psychometric validation of assessment tools, and ecological momentary assessment to capture symptom dynamics. Key advances include linking defeatist beliefs to symptom fluctuations, validating the Negative Symptom Inventory, and identifying reinforcement learning impairments as predictors of psychosis risk.

Her work bridges clinical neuroscience and digital health, with strong implications for early intervention and personalized treatment in schizophrenia and related disorders.