Uraina Clark

Uraina Simone Clark is an American neuroscientist and Director of the Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research makes use of functional magnetic resonance imaging to understand how stressors impact brain and behaviour. She has studied the impact of discrimination on brain function, and shown that social discrimination results in an increase in amygdala function.

Uraina Simone Clark
Alma materBoston University (PhD)
Scientific career
InstitutionsIcahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
ThesisFacial emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease (2008)

Early life and education

Clark earned her doctoral degree at Boston University, where she studied the recognition of facial emotions in Parkinson's disease.[1] She was a clinical intern in the Brown University clinical psychology consortium. Here she studied the impact of early life stress on the neural dysfunction of people with HIV.[2]

Research and career

Clark studies how brain function impacts behaviour. She has studied the effects of HIV infection and adverse life experiences influence brain structure and function.[3] In 2016 Clark was awarded the Medical Research Council Suffrage Science award.[4]

Clark has also studied the impact of discrimination on people's physical and mental health. She used functional magnetic resonance imaging to understand the impact of discrimination on brain function. As part of this effort, she showed that social discrimination results in an increase in amygdala function.[5] During the COVID-19 pandemic it became apparent that Black, indigenous or people of colour (BIPOC) were most likely to suffer from severe forms of coronavirus disease. Clark argued that the biomedical science community must employ anti-racism approaches, coupling new policies with systems of accountability.[6]

Select publications
  • Clark, Uraina S.; Miller, Evan R.; Hegde, Rachal R. (2018-04-01). "Experiences of Discrimination Are Associated With Greater Resting Amygdala Activity and Functional Connectivity". Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. 3 (4): 367–378. doi:10.1016/j.bpsc.2017.11.011. ISSN 2451-9022.

References
  1. Clark, Uraina Simone (2008). Facial emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease (Thesis).
  2. Clark, Uraina. "Effects of Early-Life Stress on Brain Dysfunction in HIV+ Adults: An fMRI Study". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. "Team | Clark Laboratory". labs.icahn.mssm.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  4. "Suffrage Science: awards night speeches 2016". LMS London Institute of Medical Sciences. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  5. "Uraina Clark, PhD". Black in Neuro. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  6. Clark, Uraina S.; Hurd, Yasmin L. (2020-07-10). "Addressing racism and disparities in the biomedical sciences". Nature Human Behaviour: 1–4. doi:10.1038/s41562-020-0917-7. ISSN 2397-3374.
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