Dr. Rebecca Todd

Dr. Rebecca Todd is an Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Psychology and a CIHR New Investigator and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Fellow. She received a PhD in Developmental Science and Neuroscience from University of Toronto, and post-doctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at the Rotman Research Institute and University of Toronto. Her research program focuses on neurocognitive processes underlying the interaction between human emotion and cognition in health and in pathology. It employs brain imaging methods and laboratory experiments to investigate how we process the affective salience, or emotional/motivational importance, of objects and events around us, and how such affective salience influences what we see, how we learn, and what we remember. It also focuses on individual differences in how we filter the world so that we are more likely to perceive specific categories of salient event (e.g., threatening vs. rewarding), and how such filters develop over time and influence behaviour, with major consequences for emotional health and wellbeing.  Specific programs of research include investigation of neurocognitive processes underlying effects of acute stress on cognition in interaction with hormonal status, effects of emotional experience on attention, learning and memory, and attentional biases that predict treatment outcomes in depression.