Dr. Maryanne Mufford

Maryanne Mufford is a psychiatric genetics researcher whose work centers on the biological foundations of post-traumatic stress disorder and related conditions. As a contributor to major international consortia, including initiatives within the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, her research integrates genomic, epigenomic, and neuroimaging data to clarify mechanisms underlying trauma-related psychopathology.

Her publications highlight epigenome-wide association studies identifying DNA methylation signatures linked to PTSD, with particular attention to immune cell–specific patterns and blood–brain concordance. She has advanced methylation-based risk prediction models and contributed to large-scale genome-wide association analyses uncovering risk loci and biological pathways involved in stress response, synaptic function, and immune regulation.

In parallel, her neuroimaging genetics work examines the genetic architecture of subcortical structures, especially the amygdala and related nuclei, elucidating how genetic risk for psychiatric disorders maps onto brain morphology. Collectively, this body of work reflects expertise in multi-omic integration, cross-disorder genetic vulnerability, and translational approaches to understanding trauma and anxiety-related disorders.