Faculty

Brian A Coffman, PhD

Brian A Coffman, PhD

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

Contact Details

3811 O'Hara St.
Pittsburgh
 
PA
 
15213
Email

Education & Training

PhD
Experimental Psychology, University of New Mexico, Arts and Sciences
MS
Psychology, University of New Mexico, Arts and Sciences
Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Professional Affiliations

Board Member and Membership Committee Member, EEG and Clinical Neuroscience Society
Member, Schizophrenia International Research Society

Selected Honors & Awards

Young Investigator Award, EEG & Clinical Neuroscience Society
Strick Prize for Best Research Paper, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition

Research Interests

Auditory neurophysiology in schizophrenia; Non-invasive brain stimulation in psychiatry; Cognitive dysfunction in psychosis
Selected Research Publications & Products
  1. Coffman BA, Haas G, Olson C, Cho R, Ghuman AS & Salisbury DF (2020). Lateralized evoked responses in parietal cortex demonstrate visual short-term memory deficits in first-episode schizophrenia. Journal of Psychiatric Research (In Press).
  2. Coffman BA, Candelaria-Cook FT & Stephen JM (2020). Unisensory and multisensory responses in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD): Effects of spatial congruence. Neuroscience. 430:34-46.
  3. Trumbo MC, Matzen LE, Coffman BA, Hunter MA, Jones AP, Robinson CS, Clark VP. Enhanced working memory performance via transcranial direct current stimulation: The possibility of near and far transfer, Neuropsychologia, 2016, 93, 85-96doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.10.011
  4. Coffman BA, Clark VP, Parasuraman R. Battery powered thought: Enhancement of attention, learning, and memory in healthy adults usingtranscranial direct current stimulation, NeuroImage 2014 85:3, 895-908doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.07.083
  5. Coffman BA, Trumbo MC, Clark VP. Enhancement of object detection with transcranial direct current stimulation is associated with increased attention, BMC Neuroscience 2012 13, 108doi: 10.1186/1471-2202-13-108

Clinical Interests

Selected Clinical Publications & Products
  1. Coffman BA, Kodituwakku P, Kodituwakku EL, Romero L, Sharadamma NM, Stone D, Stephen JM. Primary visual response (M100) delays in adolescents with FASD as measured with MEG, Human Brain Mapping 2013 34:11, 2852-2862, doi: 10.1002/hbm.22110
  2. Coffman BA, Candelaria-Cook FT, Stephen JM. Unisensory and multisensory responses in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD): Effects of spatial congruence, Neuroscience 2020 430, 34-46doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.01.013
  3. Bertocci M, Chase H, Graur S, Stiffler R, ..., Coffman B, Greenberg,B, Phillips M. The impact of targeted cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation on reward circuitry and affect in Bipolar Disorder, Molecular Psychiatry, In press, doi: 10.1038/s41380-019-0567-1
  4. Haigh SM, Coffman BA, Salisbury DF. Mismatch negativity in first-episode schizophrenia: A meta-analysis, Clinical EEG and Neuroscience 2017 48:1, 3-10doi: 10.1177/1550059416645980
  5. Coffman BA, Haigh SM, Murphy TK, Salisbury DF. Event-related potentials demonstrate deficits in acoustic segmentation in schizophrenia, Schizophrenia Research, 2016 173:1-2, 109-115doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2016.03.012

Education Interests

Research mentorship; Statistical methods
Selected Education Publications & Products
  1. Coffman BA & Salisbury DF, MEG Methods: A Primer of Basic MEG Analysis. In Neuroimaging in Schizophrenia (Kubicki M, Shenton ME,eds.) Springer International Publishing; 2020, 191-210doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-35206-6_11
  2. Clark VP, Coffman BA, Trumbo MC, Wegele AR. An Evolutionary Perspective on Attentional Processes. In Cognitive Electrophysiology of Attention, Signals ofMind, Academic Press (Elsevier) 2013

Pitt Psychiatry Hosts First Interventional Psychiatry Showcase

Interventional Psychiatry Showcase Classroom Mosaic

Interventional psychiatry is a major focus for many Pitt Psychiatry clinical and research faculty members. In the clinical environment, interventional psychiatry entails the development and implementation of novel psychiatric treatments using devices and innovative pharmacology, alone or with cognitive or behavioral treatment strategies. In interventional psychiatry research, investigators marry technology...

Schizophrenia Bulletin: Longitudinal Investigation of Auditory Dynamic Range Deficits in Early Psychosis and its Relationship to Negative Symptoms

Brain Image

Negative symptoms of schizophrenia—including apathy, anhedonia, and asociality, as well as blunted affect and alogia—are present during early stages of the disorder, and contribute to marked declines in social and occupational functioning. Few therapeutic options ameliorate negative symptoms, and much remains unknown regarding their neurobiological origins. To improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of...

Schizophrenia Bulletin: Diminished Auditory Cortex Dynamic Range and Its Clinical Correlates in First Episode Psychosis

Drs. Dean Salisbury & Alfredo Sklar

Despite the prevailing focus on executive functioning impairments as primary contributors to clinical outcomes in individuals with psychosis, the contribution of sensory disruptions to disease morbidity in psychosis is receiving increasing attention among scientists who study schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Reductions in neurophysiological markers of both auditory and visual early perceptual processing...

Functional Connectivity Deficits During Visual Working Memory in First-Episode Psychosis

Drs. Alfredo Sklar and Dean Salisbury

Scientists specializing in the field of psychosis research have characterized schizophrenia as a syndrome of brain dysconnectivity. Visual working memory, an executive function that relies upon coordinated activity across distributed brain regions to support various cognitive operations, has consistently exhibited impairments in schizophrenia. Indeed, cognitive symptoms account for significant functional and...

Pitt Psychiatry Hosts Virtual Research Matinee—An Afternoon of Discovery, Reflection, and Celebration 

Last week we reinvented our annual in-person Research Day as a virtual Research Matinee , a Department-wide exploration of innovative research, career reflections and honors for outstanding faculty and staff. Attendees included nearly 200 Psychiatry faculty, trainees, and staff, who tuned in for plenary speaker Mary Phillips, MD, MD (Cantab), followed by the perennially popular Speed Dat(a)ing , in which six...