Rate My Professor Hannah Clarke

Clarke's research investigates the neural and neurochemical basis of emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, and negative emotional biases, with implications for psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. Focusing on interactions among the hippocampus, amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and subgenual cingulate cortex, particularly modulated by serotonin and dopamine, she uses primate marmoset models and techniques including neurochemical manipulations, neuroimaging with MRI and PET, telemetric cardiovascular monitoring, neuropsychological tests, computational modelling, and genetic screening for proteins like BDNF and cortisol. Currently funded by the MRC, her work explores perineuronal nets in schizophrenia. Key publications include "Cognitive inflexibility after prefrontal serotonin depletion" (Science, 2004), "Lesions of the medial striatum in monkeys produce perseverative impairments during reversal learning similar to those produced by lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex" (Journal of Neuroscience, 2008), "Regional inactivations of primate ventral prefrontal cortex reveal two distinct mechanisms underlying negative bias in decision making" (PNAS, 2015), "Opposing roles of primate areas 25 and 32 and their interaction with the prelimbic cortex in threat processing" (Biological Psychiatry, 2017), "Over-activation of primate subgenual cingulate cortex induces a depressive endophenotype" (Nature Communications, 2020), and "Hippocampal perineuronal net degradation identifies disease-vulnerable neurons in a primate model of schizophrenia" (Science Advances, 2025). She contributes editorially as a Council Member of the British Association for Psychopharmacology until 2028 and serves on the Animals in Science Committee.