Aimee M. Hunter, Ph.D.

Aimee M. Hunter Ph.D, is a research psychologist in the Laboratory of Brain, Behavior, and Pharmacology at UCLA. Dr. Hunter received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Psychology from UCLA and completed NIMH-funded postdoctoral training in clinical research at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. She is a prior recipient of a Norman Cousin’s training fellowship in Psychoneuroimmunology, and a New Investigator Award from the NIMH New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit (NCDEU). Dr. Hunter has initiated several new lines of study using QEEG cordance measures to examine brain changes that are important to both positive and negative outcomes of antidepressant treatment. She has identified that specific brain changes occurring before the start of medication, i.e., during a placebo lead-in phase, are associated with medication outcomes. Dr. Hunter’s work suggests that different brain change patterns during placebo lead-in are associated with later therapeutic versus adverse effects of antidepressant treatment. Brain changes during placebo lead-in may be related to patient expectations, treatment history, social support aspects of study participation, and/or attention-related processes. The ongoing goals of this research are: 1) to develop a heuristic model for understanding the relationships between pharmacodynamic and non-pharmacodynamic factors in determining antidepressant treatment outcomes, 2) to develop QEEG biomarkers to be used as a clinical tool for helping to determine which patients would or would not be good candidates for pharmacotherapy, and to identify at what point in time an individual may be more responsive to antidepressant treatment, and 3) to determine those brain states and adjunctive interventions and that are likely to enhance medication treatment outcomes. In another line of investigation, Dr. Hunter is using QEEG biomarkers to assess relationships between early pharmacodynamic effects of drug and the later vulnerability to antidepressant-emergent worsening of mood and suicidal ideation that is observed in a small subset of individuals.

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