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IU Bloomington

William Hetrick

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Expert Bio

Clinical psychologist Bill Hetrick Hetrick is chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and co-director of the Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience Center with Brian O’Donnell. His research interests focus on the behavioral, cognitive and biological bases of severe psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia, substance use disorders, bipolar disorder and autism.

His laboratory uses translational and electrophysiological methods to characterize brain and behavior. His teaching is focused on clinical and translational research, dimensional approaches to psychopathology, abnormal psychology, evidence-based practice, intervention and evaluation and foundations of clinical psychology. He serves on the executive boards of the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology and of the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System.

A specific focus of his research lab over the past decade has been the study of cerebellar involvement in psychiatric disorders. For example, using cerebellar-dependent eye blink conditioning, his group has shown that individuals in the schizophrenia spectrum have profound associate learning deficits. Similarly, they have reported deficits in schizophrenia on several other cerebellar-dependent tasks, including finger tapping, temporal bisection/time estimation, and postural sway.

Hetrick’s research program has received strong National Institutes of Health support, and he has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. His teaching efforts have received recognition by receipt of the IU Trustee’s Teaching Award in 2007 and again in 2012. He is involved in research training of psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science and psychiatry doctoral students.

Areas of Expertise

Severe mental illness, schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, psychophysiology, EEG, brain function.

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