Wendy Heller is Professor of Psychology in the Clinical/Community Division, Director of Clinical Training and Associate Department Head in the Psychology Department, and a part-time Beckman Institute faculty member in the Cognitive Neuroscience Group. She holds a B.A. in Spanish and Psychology with Honors from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. and  Ph.D. in Biopsychology from the University of Chicago. Her research investigates the neural mechanisms associated with emotion-cognition interactions and their implications for psychopathology. She is particularly interested in examining cognitive and emotional risk factors associated with the development or maintenance of anxiety and depression. She uses behavioral and neuroimaging methods such as neuropsychological task performance, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and event-related potentials (ERPs).  She draws on psychological theories to model how fundamental emotion and personality constructs can be mapped onto brain systems to clarify the neural mechanisms of emotion and psychopathology.  In turn, the neuropsychological  and neuroimaging findings are used to inform psychological theories of emotion and psychopathology. Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Fellow of the American Psychological Society (APS) (2009); "Larine Y. Cowan Make a Difference Award" for remarkable leadership and commitment to diversity at the University of Illinois (2010); NIMH Individual Faculty Scholar Award (1991-1993); NIMH Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award (1985-87).

Neuropsychological research has demonstrated that not only are different regions of the brain specialized for different cognitive functions, they also differ in the role they play in emotional processing. Areas of the brain that are involved in information processing are thus, concurrently and in a complementary manner, engaged in a variety of emotional processes, which may influence or interact with cognition at various stages of the learning or memory process. Heller's research focuses on examining how activity and function of different brain regions influences cognitive, emotional, and social functioning and their implications for depression and anxiety. Her studies combine experimental paradigms from cognitive psychology with behavioral measures such as performance on neuropsychological tasks and measures of central nervous system activity such as EEG/ERPs and fMRI.

Heller’s work focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms that implement emotional processing and experience and on applying these models to understanding the cognitive and emotional characteristics of psychopathology, especially mood and anxiety disorders.  She uses neuropsychological and neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI to identify neural subsystems that are spatially and functionally distinct and that are involved in implementing unique constellations of both emotional and cognitive processes. Our work has shown that depression is associated with deficits in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain region involved in the ability to modulate top-down attentional processing. This may be the source of difficulties in concentration and efficient task performance in depression. However, it appears that different types of anxiety interact differently with brain activity in this region, which has implications for the development of cognitive problems in depression. We have provided compelling evidence for different patterns of brain activity associated with each of two types of anxiety: anxious apprehension (verbal rumination, worry) and anxious arousal (intense fear and/or panic). The nature of cognitive processing in mood and anxiety disorders appears to depend on the degree to which these different dimensions of depression and anxiety are present. Our work showcases state of the art approaches that have been identified as crucial in developing a novel classification of mental disorders (see Hyman, 2007, Nature Reviews/Neuroscience). In addition, we pioneered a  dimensional approach in the context of a cognitive neuroscience investigation of  psychopathology (Gray, 2002). Our work has contributed significantly to the effort to identify an endophenotype for depression (Bruder et al., 2007, Biological Psychiatry). Our findings are relevant not only for understanding severe mental disorders. We have observed the same patterns in nonclinical populations (e.g. college students) with mild levels of depression and anxiety. Therefore, our results help to elucidate the role of cognition/emotion interactions in risk and vulnerability to more serious disorders of psychopathology.  Heller’s more recent work has examined individual differences in personality (e.g., schizotypy), motivation (e.g., approach/avoidance temperament), attachment, and executive function, and their relationship to brain function and psychopathology.