Academic Title
Affiliation
Major Area(s) of Study
Associate Professor, In Residence UCSD Neuropsychology / Experimental Psychopathology
E-mail
Phone
Address
cwierenga@health.ucsd.edu 858-534-8047 University of California, San Diego Department of Psychiatry / 4510 Executive Drive Suite 315 San Diego, CA 92121
Graduate Institution

University of Florida

Research Description

Dr. Wierenga is a clinical neuropsychologist whose research focuses on brain function and cognition across a broad range of disorders including aging, Alzheimer’s disease risk, and eating disorders. Specifically, she uses innovative functional neuroimaging methods to examine brain changes underlying language and memory in Alzheimer’s disease risk, and cognitive control, reward processing and interoception in eating disorders. She also studies the relationship betwen cerebral blood flow and neural activity to understand neurovascular changes in aging and disease.

Representative Publications

  • Kaye, W.H., Wierenga, C.E., Bailer, U.F., Simmons, A.N., Bischoff-Grethe, A. (2013). Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels: The neurobiology of anorexia nervosa. Trends in Neurosciences, 36: 110-20.

  • Wierenga, C.E., Dev, S.I., Shin, D.D., Clark, L.R., Bangen, K.J., Jak, A.J., Rissman, R.A., Liu, T.T., Salmon, D.P. & Bondi, M.W. (2012). Effect of mild cognitive impairment and APOE genotype on resting cerebral blood flow and its association with cognition. Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, 32, 1589-99.

  • Wierenga, C.E., Stricker, N.H., McCauley, A., Simmons, A., Jak, A.J., Chang, Y-L, Nation, D.A., Bangen, K.J., Salmon, D.P., Bondi, M.W. (2011). Altered brain response for semantic knowledge in Alzheimer’s disease. Neuropsychologia, 49, 392-404.

Collaborators

Gregory Brown / Mark Bondi / Walter Kaye / Tamar Gollan