Kirsten Fleming, Ph.D.
Background
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Neuropsychologist, Clinical Psychologist, Scientist and Consultant

BACKGROUND
 
Although I was born in Southern California, I spent years of my childhood back East and in the Middle East. I attended college at Berkeley where I did research with Mary Main, Ph.D. who specialized in Attachment Theory.  I garnered great appreciation for the importance of early attachments and Freud's undeniably accurate depicition of defense mechanisms working on transcripts of adults retellling their childhoods.  My Ph.D. is in clinical psychology, and my dissertation was on Bipolar Disorder conducted with Michael Green Ph.D. (Camarillo State Hospital: UCLA) and published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.  The next ten months were spent at the Long Beach Veteran's Administration Medical Center involved in post-doctoral work in neuropsychology, primarily working with rehabiliation patients (i.e., stroke, tumor patients).  To obtain further training in neuroscience, I obtained an Intramural Research Training Award at the National Institute of Mental Health where I spent the next four years studying schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline disorder, brain injury and brain imaging.  I accepted a position at UC Irvine, Department of Psychiatry where I established a Neuropsychology Laboratory from 1995-2006.  At UCI I worked extensively on clinical trials establishing the efficacy of several new treatments for Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and depression, being co-investigator on dozens of studies and obtaining funding as Princial Investigator on three grants:  Use of a novel neurotrophic factor in schizophrenia, the effects of nicotine on cognition and brain imaging in schizophrenia, and use of combined therapy in schizophrenia.  In addition, several projects were completed looking at various aspects of dementia and mental illness (emotional memory in schizophrenia and dementia, emotional processing).  In 2009 I began working with the Neurology Department at UCI whereby I assessed patients with epilepsy and characterize the effects of seizures on brain functioning and evaluate patients pre and post-neurosurgery.  See below for a link to selected publications.

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Consulting
I have also worked as a consultant over the past ten years with pharmaceutical companies in aiding them design cognitive components for international studies, trained individuals at meetings as to how to perform neuropsychological assessments, analyzed large-scale data from studies, written publications, and presented findings at national and international scientific meetings.  In 2007 I presented findings at Schizophrenia Congress in Colorado, the American Psychiatric Association and Biological Psychiatry in San Diego, California, the NCDEU meeting in Boca Ratan, Florida, and the European College of Neurpsychopharmacology (ECNP) in Vienna Austria.  I have worked with these companies:  Organon, Pfizer, Novartis, Janssen. In 2006 I spent seven months at California Clinical Trials, Glendale teaching staff how to perform psychiatric and cognitive rating scales and developed an inter-rater training program for them.

Since the late 1990s I have been involved with the Orange County Alzheimer's Association.  I am a member of the Medical/Scientific Board, and beginning this year am a consultant/educator also for them.  I speak to various groups, including medical professionals, caregivers, individuals with dementia about Alzheimer's disease and how to preserve brain skills (Maintain Your Brain campaign).  I also teach the Foundations of Dementia Care at various facilities.

 


Forensic Work
My forensic work has consisted primarily of conducting neuropsychological evaluations on individuals involved in criminal trials where I seek to determine whether there are neurologic deficits that may have contributed to their actions.  I have also done evaluations for civil cases.





My Publications:

Book Chapter:

Fleming, K, Goldberg TE, Gold JM. 1994 Applying working memory constructs to schizophrenic cognitive impairment.  In David, Cutting (editors).  The Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia. East Sussex: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 197-213.



Published Journal Articles, Peer Reviewed


Lyon N, Satz P, Fleming K, Green MF,Bracha S.. Left turning (swivel) in manic patients.Schizophrenia Research 1992: 7: 71-76.

       
Rapport L, Webster J, Fleming K, Linberg J, Godlewski C, Brees J, Payandeh S, Abadee L. Predictors of falls among right-hemisphere stroke patients in the rehabilitation setting.  Archives of Physical Medicine Rehabilitation 1993. 74: 62-626.

          
Fleming K, Green MF..  Backward masking performance during and after manic episodes.  Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1995104: 63-68.

        
Fleming K, Goldberg TE, Gold JM, Weinberger DR. Verbal working memory dysfunction in schizophrenia:  Use of a Brown-Peterson paradigm. Psychiatry Research . 1995: 56: 55-161.

Fleming K, Bigelow LB, Weinberger DR, Goldberg TE..Neuropsychological effects of amphetamine may correlate with personality characteristics.  Psychopharmacology Bulletin 1995:  31 (2): 357-362.


Fleming K, Goldberg TE, Binks S, Randolph CR, Gold JM, Weinberger DR.. Visuospatial working memory in patients with schizophrenia.  Biological Psychiatry 1997:  41: 43-49.


Jin Y, Bunney W, Sandman C, Patterson J, Fleming K, Moenter J, Kalali A, Hetrick W, Potkin S..  Is P50 suppression a measure of sensory gating in schizophrenia?  Biological psychiatry 1998:  43: 873-878.


Goldberg TE, Berman KF, Fleming K, Ostrem J, Van Horn JV, Espisito G, Gold JM, Weinberger DR. Upcoupling cognitive workload and prefrontal cortical physiology:  A PET rCBF study.  Neuroimage 1998:  7, 296-303. 


Gold JM, Rehkemper G, Binks S, Carpenter C, Fleming, K, Goldberg TE, Weinberger DR.  Learning and forgetting in schizophrenia.   Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2000, Aug 109 (3) 534-8..


Fleming K, Thyrum P, Chao Y, Potkin SG.  The neurocognitive effects of quetiapine. Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology Vol 21, Number 5, October 2001, 527-9.


Potkin SG, Fleming K, Telford J, Costa J, Gulasekaram B, Jin Y.  Clozapine enhances neurocognition and clinical symptomatology more than standard neuroleptics.  Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology Vol 21, Number 5, October 2001, 479-487.


Potkin SG, Anand R, Fleming K, Alva G, Fallon JH, Keator D, Carreon D, Messina J, Wu JC, Hartman R.  Brain metabolic and clinical effects of Rivastigmine in Alzheimer’s Disease. 2002, International Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2001, Sep 4 (3) 223-30..


Potkin SG, Alva G, Fleming, K, Keator D, Carreon D, Wu JC, K, Fallon JG.  Distinguishing negative symptom schizophrenia with positron emission tomography. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2002 Feb 159 (2) 227-37.


Potkin SG, Anand R, Alphs L, Fleming,K.  Neurocognitive performance does not correlate with suicidality in schizophrenic and schizoaffective patients at risk for suicide. Schizophrenia Research 2003:  59 (1): 59-66.


Potkin SG, Alva G, Keator D, Carreon D, Fleming K, Fallon JH.  Brain metabolic effects of Neotrofin in patients with Alzheimer's disease.  Brain Research 2002 27; 951 (1): 87-95.


Fleming K , Alva G,  Potkin SG.  The neurocognitive effects of AIT-082 in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease.  In press:  International Journal of Psychopharmacology


Fleming K, Maguire G, Potkin SG. The relative sparing of emotional stimuli in Alzheimer’s disease. American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Nov/Dec 2003, 340-342.


Jin, Y., Potkin, S.G., Cohen, E., Alva, G., Kemp, A.S., Huerta, S., Thai, T., Carreon, D., Fleming, K.,Bunney ,W.E. EEG-Guided rTMS in the Treatment of Negative Symptom Schizophrenia. In Press:  Biological Psychiatry

     
Fleming K ,Goldberg TE, Weinberger DR, Potkins SG.  Prosody identification and production in schizophrenia:  a comparison with bipolar subjects and examination of specific emotions. In Press:  Psychiatry Research


Fleming K, Doo M, JR, Potkin SG. Memory for emotionally laden material in schizophrenia. Submitted


Fleming K, Alphs L, Potkin SG. Emotional deficits distinguish schizophrenic from schizoffective patients. Submitted.


Fleming K.  The neurocognitive effects of a nerve-growth factor, AIT-082 (Neotrofin), in schizophrenia. Submitted.


Journal Articles:  Other

             
Fleming K.  Introduction to the neurocognition of individuals with schizophrenia.  The Bridge Builder. Nov/Dec, 1997

            
Fleming K..  Impressions from working with individuals with schizophrenia:  A neuropsychological perspective.  The Bridge Builder. May/June, 1998
2010