Heather Berlin

Heather A. Berlin is an American neuroscientist and licensed clinical psychologist noted for her work in science communication and science outreach. Her research focuses on brain-behavior relationships affecting the prevention and treatment of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric disorders. She is also interested in the neural basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. Berlin is host of the PBS Nova series Your Brain, the PBS series Science Goes to the Movies, the Discovery Channel series Superhuman Showdown, and StarTalk All-Stars with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Education and Early Life
Born Jewish and with Eastern European and Russian heritage, Berlin grew up in New York.  As a child, Berlin was fascinated by the brain and would often ask questions about consciousness and mortality. Berlin received her doctorate in experimental psychology/neuropsychology from Magdalen College, University of Oxford and her Master of Public Health from Harvard University, where she specialized in psychiatric epidemiology and health care management/policy. She earned a BS from SUNY Stony Brook, where she was pre-med and minored in Fine Arts. Berlin has also completed a Master’s in Psychology at the New School for Social Research, an National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (specializing in compulsive, impulsive, personality, and anxiety disorders), and trained in neuropsychology at Weill Cornell Medicine in the Department of Neurological Surgery.

Career and Research
Throughout her career, Berlin has spent a considerable amount of time teaching within the United States and internationally. She is currently an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and was a visiting scholar at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Vassar College. Internationally, Berlin was a visiting lecturer at both the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Berlin's research has been published in American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Personality Disorders, Psychiatry Research, Brain, and Scientific American among others.

As both a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist, Berlin divides her time between treating patients and conducting research. In her private practice, Berlin takes a predominantly holistic approach, focusing on the improving the well-being of her clients rather than on the “illness”. In her research, she is interested in the neural basis of impulsive, compulsive and anxiety disorders, consciousness, unconscious processes, and creativity. Berlin primarily relies on neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), but has also been involved psychopharmacological clinical trials, and in experimental trials using Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) to treatment refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Passionate about science communication, destigmatizing mental illness, and promoting women in STEM, Berlin is a committee member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Science and Entertainment Exchange, and on the inaugural committee of the National Academies’ Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communication. She has also served on the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Technology Engagement with the Public (CoSTEP), and The New York Times series TimesTalks.

She co-wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed off-Broadway and Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Off the Top, which is about the neuroscience of improvisation, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Impulse Control. Berlin has made numerous media appearances including on the History Channel, Netflix (Chelsea Does Drugs with Chelsea Handler, and The Mind, Explained), Discovery Channel, BBC World Service, StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson,   Big Think,  Bill Nye: Science Guy documentary film, Curious Minds and One World with Deepak Chopra,  StoryCollider and TEDx.

Awards and Honors
Berlin has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including American Neuropsychiatric Association's Young Investigator Award, National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder's Young Investigator Award, and the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society's Clifford Yorke Prize. She also won the BBC's Christmas University Challenge as part of the Magdalen College, Oxfordteam.

Selected Publications

 * Berlin HA, Stern ER, Ng J, Zhang S, Rosenthal D, Turetzky R, Tang C, Goodman W(2017). Altered Olfactory Processing and Increased Insula Activity in Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: An fMRI Study. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. 262:15-24. (pdf)
 * Paulson S, Berlin HA, Ginot E., and Makari G (2017). Delving within: the new science of the unconscious. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. (pdf)
 * Paulson S, Berlin HA, Miller CB, Shermer M (2016). The moral animal: virtue, vice, and human nature. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA (2016). Communicating Science: Lessons from Film. Trends in Immunology. 37(4):256-60. (pdf)
 * Goldstein, K. E., Berlin, HA, Hamilton, H. K., Mitsis, E. M., McClure, M. M., Savage, K. R., Blair, N. J., Feder, M. R., Siever, L. J., New, A. S., Hazlett, E. A. (2016). Cognitive and Mood Functioning in Borderline and Schizotypal Personality Disorders. Psychology. 7: 292-299. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA, Schulz K, Zhang S, Turetzky R, Rosenthal D, Goodman W (2015). Neural Correlates of Emotional Response Inhibition in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Preliminary Study. Psychiatry Research: Imaging. 234(2):259-64 (pdf)
 * Reid RC, Berlin HA, Kingston D (2015). Sexual Impulsivity in Hypersexual Men. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports. 2:1–8. (pdf)
 * Lapidus KAB, Stern ER, Berlin HA, Goodman WK (2014). Neuromodulation for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Neurotherapeutics. 11(3):485-95 (pdf)
 * Hildebrandt T, Langenbucher JW, Flores A, Harty S, Berlin HA. (2014). The Influence of Age of Onset and Acute Anabolic Steroid Exposure on Cognitive Performance, Impulsivity, and Aggression in Men. Psychol Addict Behav.  (pdf)
 * Berlin HA (2013). The Brainstem Begs the Question: “Petitio Principii”. Neuropsychoanalysis. 15(1): 25-29. (pdf)
 * Hedrick AN, Berlin HA (2012). Implicit self-esteem in borderline personality and depersonalization disorder. Frontiers of Consciousness Research, 3(91):1-8. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA, Braun A, Simeon D, Koran L, Potenza M, McElroy S, Fong T, Pallanti S, Hollander E (2011). A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of topiramate for pathological gambling. World Journal of Biological Psychiatry. 14(2):121-8. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA (2011). The neural basis of the dynamic unconscious. Neuropsychoanalysis, 13(1):5-31. (pdf)
 * Goldstein KE, Hazlett EA, Savage KR, Berlin HA, Hamilton HK, Zelmanova Y, Look AE, Koenigsberg HW, Mitsis EM, Tang CY, McNamara M, Siever LJ, Cohen BH, New AS (2011). Dorso- and ventro-lateral prefrontal volume and spatial working memory in schizotypal personality disorder. Behavioral Brain Research, 218:335-340. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA, Koran LM, Jenike MA, Shapira NA, Chaplin W, Pallanti S, Hollander E (2010). Double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of topiramate for obsessive compulsive disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 72(5):716-21. (pdf)
 * Dell’Osso B, Berlin HA, Serati M, Altamura AC (2010). Neuropsychobiological Aspects, Comorbidity Patterns and Dimensional Models in Borderline Personality Disorder. Neuropsychobiology. 61:169–179. (pdf)
 * Altamura AC, Dell’Osso B, Berlin HA, Buoli M, Colombo F (2009). Duration of untreated illness and suicide in bipolar disorder: A naturalistic study. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience. 260(5):385-91.  (pdf)
 * Fineberg NA, Potenza M, Chamberlain SR, Berlin HA, Menzies L, Bechara A, Sahakian B, Robbins TW, Bullmore E, Hollander E (2009). Probing compulsive and impulsive behaviours, from animal models to endophenotypes: a narrative review. Neuropsychopharmacology. 35: 591–604. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA, Koch C (2009). Neuroscience meets psychoanalysis. Scientific American Mind, pp.16-19 (non peer-reviewed) (pdf)
 * Dell’Osso B, Camuri G, Berlin HA, Serati M, Altamura AC (2009). [A dimensional approach to borderline personality disorder]. Italian J of Psychopathology, 15:48-63. (pdf)
 * Hollander E, Buchsbaum MS, Haznedar MM, Berenguer J, Berlin HA, Chaplin W, Goodman CR, Licalzi EM, Newmark R, Pallanti S (2008). FDG-PET Study in Pathological Gamblers. Lithium Increases Orbitofrontal, Dorsolateral and Cingulate Metabolism. Neuropsychobiology, 58(1):37-47.  (pdf)
 * Berlin HA, Hamilton H, Hollander E (2008). Experimental therapeutics for obsessive compulsive disorder: Translational approaches and new somatic developments. Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, 75(3):174-203. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA (2008). Antiepileptic drugs for the treatment of impulsivity. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 4(3) 114-136. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA, Hollander E (2008). Understanding the differences between impulsivity and compulsivity. Psychiatric Times, 25 (8). (pdf)
 * Berlin HA (2007). Antiepilepticdrugs for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Current Psychiatry Reports, 9 (4): 291-300. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA, Rolls ET, Iversen SD (2005). Borderline personality disorder, impulsivity, and the orbitofrontal cortex. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162(12):2360-73. (pdf)
 * Berlin HA, Rolls ET, Kischka U (2004). Impulsivity, time perception, emotion, and reinforcement sensitivity in patients with orbitofrontal cortex lesions. Brain, 127: 1108-1126. (pdf)


 * Berlin HA, Rolls ET (2004). Time perception, impulsivity, emotionality, and personality in self-harming Borderline Personality Disorder patients. Journal of Personality Disorders, 18(4): 358-378.  (pdf)

Personal Life
Berlin has a daughter, born in November 2013, and a son, born in November 2016, with Baba Brinkman, a rap artist, science communicator, and playwright based in New York, NY.