Dr. Manoach is a clinically licensed neuropsychologist and an experimental psychologist by training. She has dedicated her career to understanding the neural basis and nature of fundamental cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia and autism. Although sleep plays a critical role in cognition, abnormal sleep has generally been overlooked as a potential contributor to cognitive disability. This oversight is important as effective treatments for cognitive disability are lacking and abnormal sleep is a potential treatment target.
Dr. Manoach’s group demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia have impaired sleep-dependent memory and linked this deficit to a profound reduction in sleep spindles, which are brain waves that enhance memory during sleep. Her group has also reported spindle deficits in antipsychotic-naïve patients with schizophrenia and their 1st° relatives, suggesting that spindle deficits are fundamental to schizophrenia and index genetic vulnerability. Her group is now using genetic information to identify the brain bases of spindle deficits and to develop and test treatments for spindle-related cognitive deficits. The goal of Dr. Manoach’s research program is to further the understanding, treatment and prevention of schizophrenia.
Education
PhD in Psychology, Harvard University
Select Publications
1. Manoach DS. Prefrontal cortex dysfunction during working memory performance in schizophrenia: reconciling discrepant findings. Schizophr Res. 2003 Apr 1;60(2-3):285-98.
2. Agam Y, Hämäläinen MS, Lee AK, Dyckman KA, Friedman JS, Isom M, Makris N, Manoach DS. Multimodal neuroimaging dissociates hemodynamic and electrophysiological correlates of error processing. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Oct 18;108(42):17556-61.
3. Manoach DS, Stickgold R. Abnormal Sleep Spindles, Memory Consolidation, and Schizophrenia. Annu Rev Clin Psychol. 2019 May 7;15:451-479.
Highlights
2018: Australia-Harvard Fellow, Harvard Club of Australia Foundation
2019-2024: MGH Research Scholar, Executive Committee on Research, MGH