Arielle Keller

Assistant Professor

Psychological Sciences

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Education

Ph.D., Neurosciences, Stanford University, 2021
M.S., Neuroscience, Brandeis University, 2016

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Research Interests

Dr. Keller’s research program aims to understand attention as a core element of human cognition by bridging ideas and perspectives across cognitive, clinical, computational, and developmental neuroscience. Attention is essential for nearly every aspect of our day-to-day experiences, allowing us to focus on the information we need to achieve our goals amid constant distractions. When goal-directed attention is disrupted, whether in momentary lapses or pervasively in the context of mental illness, there are often downstream consequences for higher-order cognitive and affective functions. Importantly, functional brain systems that support goal-directed attention develop gradually throughout childhood and adolescence, allowing attention to develop flexibly and adaptively to environmental demands but also rendering attention systems particularly vulnerable to adverse experiences and social inequities. Dr. Keller’s collaborative team investigates intra- and inter-individual differences in attention in healthy individuals as well as those experiencing mental illness (e.g., depression or anxiety) and explores how cognitive neurodevelopment is shaped by the characteristics of one’s environment and experiences. To address these applied cognitive neuroscience questions, Dr. Keller’s laboratory leverages personalized neuroscience methods with a variety of human neuroimaging tools (e.g., fMRI and EEG), behavioral assessments, and statistical modeling approaches across datasets.

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Representative Publications

Google Scholar

Keller, A.S., Moore, T. M., Luo, A., Visoki, E., Gataviņš, M. M., Shetty, A., Cui, Z., Fan, Y., Feczko, E., Houghton, A., Li, H., Mackey, A. P., Miranda-Dominguez, O., Pines, A., Shinohara, R. T., Sun, K. Y. , Fair, D. A.*, Satterthwaite, T. D.*, & Barzilay, R.* (2024). A general exposome factor explains individual differences in functional brain network topography and cognition in youth. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 66, 101370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101370

Keller, A. S.*, Sydnor, V. J.*, Pines, A., Fair, D. A, Bassett, D. S. & Satterthwaite, T. D. (2023) Hierarchical functional system development supports executive function. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 27 (2), 160-174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.11.005

Keller, A. S.*, Jagadeesh, A.*, Bugatus, L., Williams, L. M. & Grill-Spector, K. (2022) Attention enhances category representations across the brain with strengthened residual correlations to ventral temporal cortex. NeuroImage, 249, 118900. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.118900

Keller, A. S., Ling, R. & Williams, L. M. (2021). Spatial attention impairments are characterized by specific electroencephalographic correlates and partially mediate the association between early life stress and anxiety. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 22, 414-428. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-021-00963-0

Keller, A. S., Davidesco, I. & Tanner, K. D. (2020). Attention Matters: How orchestrating attention relates to classroom learning. Cell Biology Education – Life Sciences Ed. 19(3):fe5. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-05-0106

Keller, A. S., Leikauf, J. E., Holt-Gosselin, B., Staveland, B. R. & Williams, L. M. (2019). Paying Attention To Attention in Depression. Translational Psychiatry. 9, 279. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-019-0616-1