Faculty

Michele A Bertocci

Michele A Bertocci, PhD

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

Contact Details

3811 O'Hara St.
Pittsburgh
 
PA
 
15213
Email

Education & Training

PhD
Applied Developmental Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, School of Education
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh

Professional Affiliations

Member, Society of Biological Psychiatry

Research Interests

Computational models to predict mood disorders; Neural mechanisms of mood disorders; Evaluating results in machine learning approaches
Selected Research Publications & Products
  1. Rozovsky R, Wolfe M, Abdul-waalee H, Chobany M, Malgireddy G, Hart JA, Lepore B, Vahedifard F, Phillips ML, Birmaher B, Skeba A, Diler RS, Bertocci MA. Gray Matter Differences in Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients: A machine learning study of bipolar disorder and other psychopathologies. Brain and Behavior. 2025;15:e70589
  2. Afriyie-Agyemang Y, Bertocci MA, Iyengar S, Stiffler RS, Bonar LK, Aslam HA, Graur S, Bebko G, Skeba AS, Brady TJ, Benjamin O, Wang Y, Chase HW, Phillips ML. Lifetime depression and mania/hypomania risk predicted by neural markers in three independent young adult samples during working memory and emotional regulation. Mol Psychiatry. 2025 Mar;30(3):870-880. doi: 10.1038/s41380-024-02702-6. Epub 2024 Aug 29. PMID: 39210011
  3. Vahedifard F, Birmaher B, Iyengar S, Wolfe M, Brianna L, Chobany NM, Abdul-waalee H, Malgireddy G, Hart JA, Bertocci MA and Diler RS (2025) Maximum and minimum activity in inpatient adolescents with bipolar disorders: Daily-variability classification of actigraphy pattern with artificial intelligence. Psychiatry Research Communications 5(2): 100212.
  4. Bertocci MA, Rozovsky R, Wolfe M, Abdul-Waalee H, Chobany M, Malgireddy G, Hart JA, Skeba A, Brady T, Lepore B, Versace A, Chase HW, Birmaher B, Phillips ML, Diler RS. Neural markers of mania that distinguish inpatient adolescents with bipolar disorder from those with other psychopathology. Psychiatry Res. 2024 Mar;333:115747. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2024.115747. Epub 2024 Jan 26. PMID: 38301286; PMCID: PMC10922873
  5. Bertocci MA, Afriyie-Agyemang Y, Rozovsky R, Iyengar S, Stiffler R, Aslam HA, Bebko G, Phillips ML. Altered patterns of central executive, default mode and salience network activity and connectivity are associated with current and future depression risk in two independent young adult samples. Mol Psychiatry. 2023 Mar;28(3):1046-1056. doi: 10.1038/s41380-022-01899-8. Epub 2022 Dec 8. PMID: 36481935; PMCID: PMC10530634

Education Interests

Research mentorship

JAMA Psychiatry: Left Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortical Activity During Reward Expectancy and Mania Risk

Drs. Manan Arora and Mary Phillips

Mania/hypomania is characterized by elevated reward sensitivity and goal overvaluation, impulsivity, and sensation seeking, and is the defining symptom of bipolar disorder. However, in individuals without a clear history of mania/hypomania, bipolar disorder is often misdiagnosed as major depressive disorder. Replicable neural markers of mania/hypomania risk are needed for earlier bipolar diagnosis, as well as for...

Pitt Psychiatry Establishes Center for Neural Circuit-Based Technology Interventions in Psychiatry

Faculty of the New CNCTI-P Center

The Department of Psychiatry has established a Center for Neural Circuit-Based Technology Interventions in Psychiatry (CNCTI-P), which will be led by Mary Phillips, MD, MD (CANTAB) (Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Clinical and Translational Science, and Bioengineering, and Pittsburgh Foundation-Emmerling Endowed Chair in Psychotic Disorders). Dr. Phillips is an international leader in affective neuroscience...

Psychiatry Research: Neural Markers of Mania That Distinguish Inpatient Adolescents with Bipolar Disorder from Those with Other Psychopathology

Drs. Rasim Diler and Michele Bertocci

Adolescents with manic or hypomanic episodes—key features of bipolar disorder (BD)—may experience delayed correct diagnosis or inappropriate treatment because some symptoms of BD are also seen in other disorders (such as unipolar depressive disorders and attention deficit/hyperactive disorder). A team of scientists from the University of Pittsburgh including Michele Bertocci, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry)...

JAMA Psychiatry: Patterns of Neural Network Functional Connectivity Associated With Mania/Hypomania and Depression Risk in 3 Independent Young Adult Samples 

Drs. Maya Schumer and Mary Phillips

Bipolar disorder, which has peak onset in early adulthood, is often difficult to accurately diagnose due to misreporting mania/hypomania, even though mania/hypomania is a pathognomonic feature of the disorder. The misreporting of this feature frequently results in mistaking bipolar disorder for unipolar depression. To facilitate earlier and accurate bipolar disorder diagnoses, there is a vital need for objective...

Biological Psychiatry: Neural Network Functional Interactions Mediate or Suppress White Matter–Emotional Behavior Relationships in Infants 

Infant and Mother

Complex and coordinated brain development progresses rapidly within the first year of a baby’s life, and infant white matter development is associated with future cognitive processes and behavioral problems. Elucidating the neural basis of infant emotional behaviors can identify biomarkers of pathophysiological risk for subsequent behavioral and emotional problems. In Biological Psychiatry, investigators including...