Jon Carlson, MD

Fellow
Child Psychiatry

Thesis Advisory

Scott Woods

Thesis Project

Structural, functional and clinical characteristics of the transition from prodrome to primary psychotic illness.

The impact of mood or psychotic episodes that occur at a young age is unclear, especially with regard to perturbations of normal biologic and psychosocial development. Treating psychiatric illness in children and adolescents is a focus of Dr. Carlson’s clinical training. Thesis work in this area will allow him to help develop identification and intervention strategies that will hopefully alter the trajectory of these psychiatric illnesses. He plans to focus on identification of risk factors for psychotic illness by studying individuals in the prodrome of psychosis.

In addition to coursework, Dr. Carlson is working with the PRIME clinic (Prevention through Risk Identification Management and Education) which performs identification, assessment and endophenotype characterization in young people at risk for psychosis. His thesis project will involve an investigation of prodromal individuals, examining correlations clinical course, presence or absence of conversion to psychotic illness and structural and functional MRI data.