By William Flockton

In a bright, white MRI psychiatric facility, concerned parents came to Jake DeRosa and asked if he could prescribe a cure for their children from brain scans. Then came the difficult explanation that brain scans could only contribute to research that would let doctors better understand how to help their children someday, but not tomorrow.  

When DeRosa first came to the Child Mind Institute in 2018, he saw a future in medical practice. When he left the Child Mind Institute in 2021, he realized he could make a bigger impact as a medical researcher.  

“A lot of what these individuals are doing is treating the individual based on the current system,” DeRosa said. “I wanted to be a part of something that’s researching the new frontier toward a better system.” 

Now a doctoral student at the University of Colorado Boulder, DeRosa’s research on negative memory was featured in Colorado Arts and Science magazine in early September. The aim of DeRosa and his co-researcher’s work is to learn why certain obsessive, negative memories and thoughts are common in psychiatric disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and anxiety. 

DeRosa’s interest in the research stems from his own past experience growing up. There were times in which he did not properly deal with the emotional and physical changes he faced during that period in his life.  

“You sometimes deal with unwanted thoughts and negative thoughts or negative thinking,” said DeRosa. “For me, someone who kind of went through that growing up, it definitely hits close to home.” 

DeRosa is not alone in his experience with negative thoughts. University of Colorado Boulder student, and engineering major, Rohan Gottumakala deals with negative thoughts which revolve around embarrassing moments from his past.  

“It’s when I’m in my bed at night or just random time when I’m by myself in the day and then it’s just the worst feeling,” Gottumakala said. “I feel like I have to get up and just run away.” 

The goal of DeRosa and his collaborators isn’t to eliminate traumatic or embarrassing memories, but rather compulsions which may be caused by it. Psychiatric disorders like OCD, anxiety and depression were identified by the lab as being the focus of their research, in which compulsive thoughts can lead to harm.  

According to the International OCD Foundation, individuals with OCD commonly obsess over intrusive thoughts, how actions in the past could impact them and making mistakes, in addition to several others. Where someone might look back on an embarrassing past action, or intrusive thought, and be able to easily move forward, it is difficult for individuals with OCD to remove it from their active mind.  

“When you do something embarrassing, you’re always going to remember that moment when you’re doing a similar thing or in a similar situation,” Gottumakala said. 

Professor Marie Banich is the director of the lab which DeRosa and his co-researchers work at and DeRosa’s doctoral advisor.  

“Jake is incredibly creative in using computer-based approaches, statistical approaches and machine learning algorithms to decode brain data,” Banich said. 

Banich originally thought there was one control region responsible for actively controlling thoughts. However, DeRosa provided a new perspective in their most recent study, which showed that there are actually four separate regions of the brain which work together to create active thought control.  

Though DeRosa never imagined a career in data when he was younger, Banich noted that he is the main researcher in the lab who uses a computational approach to separate regions of the brain to see how they work.  

DeRosa’s first introduction to data was an Eagle Scout project he worked on in high school. For the project, DeRosa found the data coordinates for every fire hydrant in the jurisdiction of the North Haven Fire Department and incorporated the data into their GPS system. This allowed firefighters to know where fire hydrants would be en route to a fire. 

“It was cool because obviously it was meaningful and I liked it,” DeRosa said. “But I’m realizing I think there was always that predilection toward data even early on in my life.” 

DeRosa’s hope is that one day his research might be able to create models which illustrate what is happening in an individual’s brain that makes it hard for them to remove negative thoughts. In addition, he believes it could also be used as a way for medical practitioners to have a reliable method of checking how well their treatment is working for patients. 

However, the lab still has some challenges to overcome in their research.  

“Obviously, the more progress and the quicker things can move, the quicker it’s going to get toward helping someone,” DeRosa said. “But I think we’re realizing that we’d rather get it done right and in the best way. 

Edited by Rue Murray