Department of Psychology

Biosketch

I've been interested in psychopathology throughout my career, and worked mainly on cognitive aspects of schizophrenia and Huntington disease for a number of years.  Research on schizophrenia occupies much less of my time now; In the last decade I concentrated more on understanding the characteristics, bases, and cognitive correlates of affective and motivational processes in Alzheimer disease.  Doing work in this area has meant getting involved in research on normal aging as well as in neuropsychology.  Of late, this work has   me returning to my earlier focus on cognition in abnormal states, but now I'm looking at a different part of the life-span, aging, and different phenomena, depression, and different illnesses, dementias and geriatric depression.

Professional Biography

• 1967-1971 - Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (1970), Department of Psychology, University of Missouri. St. Louis, MO.
• 1971-1974 - Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Wayne State Univ., Detroit, MI.
• 1972-1974 - Consulting Psychologist, Lafayette Clinic, Detroit, MI.
• 1973-1981 - Associate, Dept. of Affiliated Pediatrics, Hutzel Hospital, Detroit, MI.
• 1974-1986 - Consulting Psychologist, Dept. of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD.
• 1974-1989 - Associate Professor to Professor (1976), Department of Psychology and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University and School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD.
• 1978-1998 - Research Associate to Research Professor (1988), Department of Psychiatry, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Balltimore, MD.
• 1978-1989 - Affiliate Staff, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD.
• 1979-1982 - Psychopathology and Clinical Biology Research Review Committee, NIMH.
• 1982-1984 - Guest Worker, Laboratory of Psychology and Psychopathology, NIMH.
• 1985-1989 - Associate Editor, Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
• 1987-1998 - Professional Advisory Section, Scottish Rite Schizophrenia Research Program.
• 1989-2005 - Professor, Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neurology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH.
• 1990 - present - Social Science Program Specialist, VAMC, Cleveland, OH
• 1990-2005 - Director, Clinical Psychology Training Program, Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
• 1991-1992 - President, Society for Research in Psychopathology
• 1994-2000 - Incoming Editor (1994) and Editor (1995) Journal of Abnormal Psychology
• 2003-2009 - Incoming Editor (2003) and Editor (2004) Psychological Assessment

Research Interests

Most generally, my work is in psychopathology, and over the past few years particularly in emotional processes in depression, in disorders of aging and in schizophrenia. My Alzheimer Center laboratory is involved in the assessment of emotional processes in patients and clinically normal older individuals. We are particularly interested in the differentiation between symptom clusters that may have different neuropsychological substrates (e.g., depression and apathy) and are studying this from both clinical and psychophysiological perspectives. Other students in my laboratory are involved in projects investigating emotional regulation in depression and aging. Having been involved in work on cognitive psychopathology for a long time, I can't quite let that go and so I am also involved in collaborations in that area in dementia and the major mental disorders.
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Courses Taught

• PSCL 412 - Measurement of Behavior
• PSCL 418 - History and Systems of Psychology
• PSCL 425 - Cognitive Assessment (Adult)
• PSCL 426 - Personality Assessment (Self-report measures, Adult)
• PSCL 429, 430 - Practicum in Assessment
• PSCL 453 - Professional Issues in Clinical Psychology
• PSCL 453 - Psychopathology in Aging

Recent Publications

Curran, T., Hills, A., Patterson, M. B., & Strauss, M. E . (2001). Effects of aging on visuospatial attention: An ERP study. Neuropsychologia, 39 (3), 288-301.

Storck, M., Csordas, T.J., & Strauss, M. (2001). Depressive illness and Navajo healing. Medical Anthropology QuarterlyMedical Anthropology Quarterly , 14 , 571-597.

Strauss , M.E . (2001) Methodology for identifying specific psychological deficits: Introduction to the special section. Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 110 , 4-5.

Strauss , M.E. (2001) Demonstrating specific cognitive deficits: A psychometric perspective. Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 110 , 6-14.

Adams , N. Strauss, M., Schluchter, M., & Redline, S. (2001) Relation of measures of sleep disordered breathing to neuropsychological function. American Journal of Rispiratory and Critical Care Medicine , 163 , 1626-1631.

Butt, Z. A., & Strauss, M. E. (2001). Relation of family and personal history to the occurrence of depression in persons with Alzheimer's disease. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 9, 249-254.

Sloan, D.M., Strauss , M.E. , & Wisner, K. L. (2001). Diminished response to pleasant stimuli by depressed women. Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 110 , 488-493.

Nuendorfer, M.M., McClendon, M.J., Smyth, K.A., Stuckey, J.C., Strauss , M.E. , & Patterson,, M.B. (2001). A longitudinal study of the relationship between levels of depression among with person with Alzheimer's disease and levels of depression among their family caregivers. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences , 56b , p301-p313.

Frazier, T.W., Adams, N.L., Strauss , M.E. , & Redline, S. (2001) Comparability of the Rey and Mack forms of the complex figure test. The Clinical Neuropsychologist , 15 , 337-344.

Landes, A., Sperry , S.D. , Strauss , M.E. , & Geldmacher, D.S. (2001). Apathy in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society , 49 , 1700-1707.

Butt, Z.A., Strauss, M.E ., Smyth, K.A., & Rose-Rego, S. K. (2002). Negative affectivity and emotion-focused coping in spouse caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Applied Gerontology , 21 , 471-483.

Strauss , M.E., & Summerfelt, A. (2002). Neuropsychology of schizophrenia: A methodological critique. In Lenzenweger, M. & Hooley, J. (Eds). Principles of psychopathology: Essays in honor of Brendan A. Maher . Washington , DC : American Psychological Association Press. Pp. 119-134.

Strauss, M.E. & Sperry , S.D. (2002) An informant-based assessement of apathy in Alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Behavioral Neurology , 15 , 176-183.

Jaskiw, G.E., Blumer, T.E., Gutierrez-Esteinou, R., Meltzer, H.Y., Steele, V. &. Strauss , M.E. (2003). Comparison of inpatients with major mental illness who do and do not consent to low-risk research. Psychiatry Research , 119, 183-188 .

Frazier, T.W., Strauss , M.E . , Steinhauer, S. (2004). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as an index of emotional response. P sychophysiology . 41 , 75-83

Strauss , M.E . & Fritsch, T. (in press). Factor structure of the CERAD Neuropsychological Battery. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society .