I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology (Clinical & CNS Area Groups), core faculty member of the interdepartmental Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) Program and the Maryland Neuroimaging Center (MNC), and Director of the Affective and Translational Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Maryland. My work is supported by the NIH and has led to 90 papers and chapters. I was Co-Editor of The Nature of Emotion, am an incoming Associate Editor at the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science (formerly Journal of Abnormal Psychology) , and co-edited three special issues focused on the neurobiology of emotional states, traits, and disorders. I am an active member of the Affective Neuroimaging Collaboratory, ENIGMA, and Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP)  consortia and a standing member of the NIH Adult Psychopathology and Disorders of Aging (APDA) study section. Most of my work is focused on understanding the nature and brain bases of anxiety-related states, traits, and disorders. When extreme, anxiety contributes to a variety of debilitating, treatment-resistant mental illnesses, including internalizing disorders, addiction, and schizophrenia. To understand the origins and course of this liability, my group uses a range of tools—including multimodal neuroimaging (MRI, PET), psychophysiology, neuroendocrine measures, ecological momentary assessment (EMA), geolocation tracking, semi-structured clinical and life-stress interviews, and genetic analyses—in adult and pediatric patients, young adults, and monkeys. Our imaging research highlights the importance of a distributed circuit encompassing the amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, periaqueductal gray, anterior insula, and mid-cingulate.

Enjoys sci-tweeting, Maui, Sherlock Holmes, hiking, streaming underground music from the 90s, and spending time outdoors with family and friends.

Dr. Shackman is reviewing graduate student applications for the clinical psychology and NACS (neuroscience) doctoral programs (Fall 2022).

Representative Recent Publications 

Grogans, S. E., Fox, A. S. & Shackman, A. J. (2022). The amygdala and depression: A sober reconsideration. American Journal of Psychiatry, 179, 454-457. PDF 

Hur, J., Kuhn, M., Grogans, S. E., Anderson, A. S., Islam, S., Kim, H. C., Tillman, R. M., Fox, A. S., Smith, J. F., DeYoung, K. A.,  Shackman, A. J. (2022). Anxiety-related fronto-cortical activity is associated with dampened stressor reactivity in the real world. Psychological Science, 33, 906-924. PDF RAW DATA PROCESSED DATA NeuroVault ANiC ENIGMA

Gee, D. G., DeYoung, K. M., McLaughlin, K. A., Tillman, R. M., Barch, D. M., Forbes, E. E., Krueger, R. F., Strauman, T. J., Weierich, M. A. & Shackman, A. J. (2022). Training the next generation of clinical psychological scientists: A data-driven call to action. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 18, 43-70. PDF DATA

Shackman, A. J. & Fox, A. S. (2021). Two decades of anxiety neuroimaging research: New insights and a look to the future. American Journal of Psychiatry, 178, 106-109. PDF

Hur, J., Smith, J. F., DeYoung, K. A., Anderson, A. S., Kuang, J., Kim, H. C., Tillman, R. M., Kuhn, M., Fox, A. S., & Shackman, A. J. (2020). Anxiety and the neurobiology of temporally uncertain threat anticipation. Journal of Neuroscience, 40, 7949-7964. PDF DATA NeuroVault

Hur, J., Stockbridge, M. D., Fox, A. S. & Shackman, A. J. (2019). Dispositional negativity, cognition, and anxiety disorders: An integrative translational neuroscience framework. Progress in Brain Research, 247, 375-436. PDF

Conway, C. C., Forbes, M. K., Forbush, K. T., Fried, E. I., Hallquist, M. N., Kotov, R., Mullins-Sweatt, S. N., Shackman, A. J., Skodol, A. E., South, S. C., Sunderland, M., Waszczuk, M. A., Zald, D. H., Afzali, M. H., Bornovalova, M. A., Carragher, N., Docherty, A. R., Jonas, K. G., Krueger, R. F., Patalay, P., Pincus, A. L., Tackett, J. L., Reininghaus, U., Waldman, I. D., Wright, A. G. C., Zimmerman, J., Bach, B., Bagby, R. M., Chmielewski, M., Cicero, D. C., Clark, L. A., Dalgleish, T., DeYoung, C. G., Hopwood, C. J., Ivanova, M. Y., Latzman, R. D., Patrick, C. J., Ruggero, C. J., Samuel, D. B., Watson, D. & Eaton, N. R. (2019). A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology can transform mental health research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14, 419-436. PDF

Shackman, A. J. & Wager, T. D. (2019). The emotional brain: Fundamental questions and strategies for future research. Neuroscience Letters, 693, 68-74. PDF

Fox, A. S. * & Shackman, A. J. * (2019). The central extended amygdala in fear and anxiety: Closing the gap between mechanistic and neuroimaging research. Neuroscience Letters, 693, 58-67. PDF

Shackman, A. J. & Fox, A. S. (2018). Getting serious about variation: Lessons for clinical neuroscience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22, 368-369. PDF