Assistant Professor

Email Address:
kjoyner@berkeley.edu

Research Area:
Clinical Science

Accepting Students:
Yes



Research Interests:
Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders; Externalizing; Electroencephalogram/Event-Related Potentials (EEG/ERPs); Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA); Behavioral Economics; Behavioral Genetics




whatshotResearch Description
My program of research seeks to provide a comprehensive account of the etiology of alcohol and other drug addiction in humans to bolster early identification and prevention efforts. Specifically, the C.R.E.A.M. (Clinical Research on Externalizing and Addiction Mechanisms) Lab (launching in January 2022) focuses on disturbances in cognitive-affective processes across time that give rise to the emergence of substance use disorders (SUDs) and other forms of externalizing psychopathology. I have three complementary substantive areas in pursuit of the mechanisms of risk for addiction: (1) Understanding dispositional trait liabilities promotive of addiction, particularly as concerns the interplay between disinhibition and reward sensitivity, (2) leveraging behavioral economic paradigms to characterize proximal risk and maintenance processes implicated in SUD, and (3) bridging between- and within-subject mechanisms of risk for problematic consumption using ambulatory assessment techniques. To do this work, we use human neuroscientific methods (primarily electroencephalogram/event-related potentials [EEG/ERPs]), ambulatory assessment techniques (such as ecological momentary assessment), biometric (behavioral genetic) analyses, and a variety of statistical modeling approaches.



placeSelected Publications
Perkins, E. R.*, Joyner, K. J.*, Patrick, C. J., Bartholow, B. D., Latzman, R. D., DeYoung, C. G., Kotov, R., Reininghaus, U., Cooper, S. E., Afzali, M. H., Docherty, A. R., Dretsch, M. N., Eaton, N. R., Goghari, V. M., Haltigan, J. D., Krueger, R. F., Martin, E. A., Michelini, G., Ruocco, A. C., Tackett, J. L., Venables, N. C., Waldman, I. D., & Zald, D. H. (2020). Neurobiology and the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology: Progress toward ontogenetically informed and clinically useful nosology.? Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 22(1), 417-429.
Joyner, K. J., Bowyer, C.B., Yancey, J. R., Venables, N.C., Foell, J., Hajcak, G., Worthy, D., Bartholow, B., & Patrick, C. J. (2019). Blunted reward sensitivity and trait disinhibition interact to predict substance use problems. Clinical Psychological Science. 7(5), 1109-1124.
Joyner, K.J., Yancey, J.R., Venables, N.C., Burwell, S., Iacono, W.G., & Patrick, C.J. (2020). Using a Co-Twin Control design to evaluate alternative trait measures as indices of liability for Substance Use Disorders. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 148, 75-83.
Joyner, K.J., Meshesha, L.Z., Dennhardt, A., Borsari, B., Martens, M.P., & Murphy, J.G. (2019). Sensitivity to next-day contingencies as an indicator of weekday drinking and distinctly severe alcohol problems: A behavioral economic analysis. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 43(12), 2607-2619.
Joyner, K. J., Daurio, A., Perkins, E. R., Patrick, C. J., & Latzman, R. D. (2021). The difference between disinhibition and impulsivity – And why it matters for clinical psychological science. Psychological Assessment, 33(1), 29–44.



filter_dramaTeaching