Kristan Armstrong, PhD
Clinical Interests
Psychosocial Recovery and Family Psychoeducation in Psychotic Disorders
Research Information
Kristan Armstrong is a licensed clinical social worker finalizing her PhD at University of Tennessee, College of Social Work, where she also completed her MSSW. She has worked in the Vanderbilt Psychotic Disorders Program with Stephan Heckers, MD, MSc, for 12 years.
Kristan's research interests are primarily predicting outcome in the early stages of psychosis using pre-illness factors, clinical diagnoses and symptoms, and with a particular focus in psychosocial functioning.
Representative Publications
Armstrong K, Williams L, Kose S, Woolard A, Heckers S. (2010) Impaired associative inference in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 38 (3), 622-629. PMID: 21134974.
Armstrong K, Williams L, & Heckers S. (2012) Revised associative inference paradigm confirms relational memory impairment in schizophrenia. Neuropsychology, 26 (4), 451-458. PMID: 22612578.
Seldin, K Armstrong K, Schiff M, & Heckers S. (2017) Reducing the diagnostic heterogeneity of schizoaffective disorder. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 8 (18), 1-6. PMID: 28239362.
Armstrong K, Avery S, Blackford JU, Woodward ND, & Heckers S. (2018) Impaired associative inference in the early stage of psychosis. Schizophrenia Research, 202, 86-90. PMID: 29954698.
Avery, SN, Armstrong, K, Blackford, JU, Woodward, ND, Cohen, N, Heckers, S (2019). Impaired relational memory in the early stage of psychosis. Schizophrenia Research, 212, 113-120. PMID: 31402078.
McHugo, M, Talati, P, Armstrong, K, Vandekar, SN, Blackford, JU, Woodward, ND, Heckers, S. (2019). Hyperactivity and Reduced Activation of Anterior Hippocampus in Early Psychosis. American Journal of Psychiatry, 176, 1030-1038. PMID: 31623459.
Avery, SN, Armstrong, K, McHugo, M, Vandekar, S, Blackford, JU, Woodward, ND, Heckers, S (2020). Relational memory in the early stages of psychosis: A 2-year follow-up study. Schizophrenia Bulletin. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbaa081PMID: 32657351.
McHugo, M, Armstrong, K, Roeske, MJ, Woodward, ND, Blackford, JU, Heckers, S (2020). Hippocampal volume in early psychosis: A 2-year longitudinal study. Translational Psychiatry, 10, 306-316. PMID: 32873788.