About

Karen Quigley is a Clinical Assistant Professor of General Dentistry at the Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine. She holds a DMD degree from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, earned in 2004, and a CAGS (Advanced Education in General Dentistry) from Temple University School of Dentistry, completed in 2005. She is based at the office located at 635 Albany Street, G-629, and is involved in pre-doctoral patient treatment centers, contributing to the education and clinical training of dental students. Her role emphasizes the integration of preventive and restorative dentistry within the academic and clinical environment, supporting the school's mission to provide state-of-the-art dental care through its teaching clinics and faculty practice.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Cognitive psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Cognitive science
• Biology

Selected publications

• Relationships Between Brain Functional Connectivity and Resting Cardiac Autonomic Profiles in Functional Neurological Disorder: A Pilot Study

  medRxiv · 2026-01-08

  articleOpen access

  Background: Functional neurological disorder (FND) is associated with alterations in functional brain networks, yet relationships between peripheral autonomic physiology and brain architecture remain poorly characterized. This pilot study examined associations between cardiac autonomic metrics and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in FND. Methods: Twenty females with FND and 23 age-matched female psychiatric controls (PCs) completed questionnaires, 10-min resting photoplethysmography recordings, and same-day resting-state fMRI. Interbeat interval (IBI) and heart rate variability (HRV) metrics were extracted. Whole-brain rsFC was quantified using weighted-degree [centrality]. Within-group analyses tested associations between cardiac autonomic metrics and weighted-degree rsFC separately in FND and PC cohorts, adjusting for age, head motion, and antidepressant/β-blocker use - while applying a cluster-wise correction. Results: Cardiac (IBI and HRV) metrics did not differ between FND and PC cohorts, and these metrics did not correlate with FND symptom severity, somatic symptom burden, affective symptoms, or childhood trauma. In FND, shorter IBI (i.e., faster resting heart rate) correlated with increased weighted-degree rsFC in bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA) and right precentral/superior frontal regions, whereas higher HRV primarily correlated with decreased weighted-degree rsFC in the bilateral SMA, mid-cingulate cortex, and right amygdala, anterior insula, and lateral orbitofrontal cortex. In PCs, autonomic-rsFC associations were more spatially restricted to the anterior/mid-cingulate and SMA. Conclusion: In FND, individual differences in resting autonomic physiology related to the centrality of brain areas that are part of the central autonomic, salience, and allostatic-interoceptive networks. These findings suggest that the relationship between autonomic physiology and network architecture may be important in FND.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Investigating the (in)stability of resting baseline measures of cardiac activity

  Biological Psychology · 2026-04-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Illness perceptions and behavioural responses as mechanisms of change in problem‐solving treatment for Veterans with Gulf War Illness

  British Journal of Health Psychology · 2026-03-13

  article

  OBJECTIVE: Persistent 'medically unexplained' physical symptoms and syndromes (PPS), an umbrella term for symptom-based conditions with poorly understood pathophysiology and aetiology, disproportionately impact Gulf War Veterans. Behavioural interventions are efficacious and recommended as first-line treatments for PPS, but the mechanisms by which these interventions work remain unknown. This study sought to identify mechanisms of change that make problem-solving treatment (PST) efficacious for Veterans living with Gulf War Illness (GWI), a common form of PPS among Veterans who served in Operations Desert Shield/Storm. METHODS: Veterans with GWI were randomized to receive either PST or an active control intervention. Analyses focused on the 135 Veterans who were randomized to the PST condition. Outcomes of interest included disability, depressive symptoms, and physical symptoms. Threatening and protective illness perceptions as well as maladaptive and adaptive behavioural responses to illness were analysed as mechanisms of change (i.e., mediators) of these outcomes over time in single-arm mediation models. RESULTS: All three outcomes were mediated by reduced threatening illness perceptions (p-values .032-.047) and reduced maladaptive behavioural responses (all-or-nothing and limiting responses; p-values .004-.007). Changes in protective illness perceptions and adaptive behavioural responses to illness were not significant mediators of PST outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with the cognitive behavioural model of PPS and the Common-Sense Model of Self-Regulation, changes in negative illness perceptions and behavioural responses may act as mechanisms of change in PST for GWI.

  PublisherDOI

• Relationships between brain functional connectivity and resting cardiac autonomic profiles in functional neurological disorder: A pilot study

  NeuroImage Clinical · 2026-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Functional neurological disorder (FND) is associated with alterations in functional brain networks, yet relationships between peripheral autonomic physiology and brain architecture remain poorly characterized. This pilot study examined associations between cardiac autonomic metrics and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in FND. METHODS: Twenty females with FND and 23 age-matched female psychiatric controls (PCs) completed questionnaires, 10-min resting photoplethysmography recordings, and same-day resting-state fMRI. Interbeat interval (IBI) and heart rate variability (HRV) metrics were extracted. Whole-brain rsFC was quantified using weighted-degree [centrality]. Within-group analyses tested associations between cardiac autonomic metrics and weighted-degree rsFC separately in FND and PC cohorts, adjusting for age, head motion, and antidepressant/β-blocker use - while applying a cluster-wise correction. RESULTS: Cardiac (IBI and HRV) metrics did not differ between FND and PC cohorts, and these metrics did not correlate with FND symptom severity, somatic symptom burden, affective symptoms, or childhood trauma. In FND, shorter IBI (i.e., faster resting heart rate) correlated with higher weighted-degree rsFC in bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA) and right precentral/superior frontal regions, whereas lower HRV primarily correlated with higher weighted-degree rsFC in the bilateral SMA, mid-cingulate cortex, and right amygdala, anterior insula, and lateral orbitofrontal cortex. In PCs, autonomic-rsFC associations were more spatially restricted to the bilateral anterior/mid-cingulate and SMA. CONCLUSION: In FND, individual differences in resting autonomic physiology related to the centrality of brain areas that are part of the central autonomic, salience, and allostatic-interoceptive networks. These findings suggest that the relationship between autonomic physiology and network architecture may be important in FND.

  PublisherDOI

• Emotion-specific verbal fluency relates to the intensity and variety of emotional experiences but not their specificity.

  Emotion · 2026-03-09

  articleSenior author

  Individual differences in the intensity (e.g., emotional reactivity and mean affect), variety (e.g., emodiversity and range of emotions), and specificity (e.g., emotional granularity and alexithymia) of self-reported emotion experiences throughout daily life are important indicators of mental health and well-being. As commonly measured, these constructs reflect differences in how individuals employ emotion concept words to report their feelings. Here, we examined how emotion fluency (the number of emotion concept words one can readily access) relates to the intensity, variety, and specificity of individuals' reported emotion experiences using both retrospective self-report questionnaires and measures derived from emotion experience ratings over a 6-week experience sampling protocol. Those higher in emotion fluency reported experiencing more intense emotions, particularly negative emotions, and a wider variety of emotions over time (e.g., greater emodiversity) even when controlling general verbal fluency. However, emotion fluency was not related to measures associated with the specificity or precision with which one uses emotion concepts to report their experiences (e.g., emotional granularity and alexithymia). Findings suggest that having ready access to many emotion concepts may enable a person to use a lot of different emotion concepts when reporting feelings, but that greater emotion fluency does not necessarily result in using those concepts in more specific, context-dependent ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Structured variation in daily life experience within and across individuals

  2025-07-17

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Human experience varies across contexts and individuals. Yet, psychological studies typically constrain rather than discover this structured variation. We demonstrate an alternative approach that samples deeply and broadly to discover reliable person-specific, multimodal patterns of daily life experience. Ninety-seven healthy adults wore cardiac monitors for 8 hours/day for 14 days and reported current valence, arousal, primary activity, social context, and emotions (via free report) when prompted following a substantial cardiac interbeat interval change (and twice randomly each day). From each event (10,755 total, M=110.9 events/person), we extracted cardiovascular, postural, affective, and contextual features. Integrative clustering of these features identified 313 multimodal patterns (M=3.2 patterns/person), which were largely person-specific, with 81.7% of patterns being unique to one person. The pattern-distinguishing features also varied by person. Finally, self-generated emotion labels had many-to-many mappings with multimodal patterns. Our approach has broad utility and provides further evidence that emotions are diverse populations of instances.

  PublisherDOI

• The Theory of Constructed Emotion: More Than a Feeling

  Perspectives on Psychological Science · 2025-05-01 · 22 citations

  articleOpen access

  A recently published article by van Heijst et al. attempted to reconcile two research approaches in the science of emotion—basic emotion theory and the theory of constructed emotion—by suggesting that the former explains emotions as bioregulatory states of the body whereas the latter explains feelings that arise from those state changes. This bifurcation of emotion into objective physical states and subjective feelings involves three misleading simplifications that fundamentally misrepresent the theory of constructed emotion and prevent progress in the science of emotion. In this article we identify these misleading simplifications and the resulting factual errors, empirical oversights, and evolutionary oversimplifications. We then discuss why such errors will continue to arise until scientists realize that the two theories are intrinsically irreconcilable. They rest on incommensurate assumptions and require different methods of evaluation. Only by directly considering these differences will these research silos in the science of emotion finally dissolve, speeding the accumulation of trustworthy scientific knowledge about emotion that is usable in the real world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cortical and subcortical mapping of the human allostatic–interoceptive system using 7 Tesla fMRI

  Nature Neuroscience · 2025-10-23 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access

  The brain continuously anticipates the body's energetic needs and prepares to meet them before they arise-a process called allostasis. To support allostasis, the brain continually models the body's sensory state, a process known as interoception. Here we replicate and extend a large-scale system that supports allostasis and interoception in the human brain using ultrahigh precision 7 Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (n = 90), improving precision in subgenual and pregenual anterior cingulate topography and expanding brainstem nuclei mapping. Our functional connectivity analyses provide corroborating evidence for more than 96% of the anatomical connections documented in nonhuman animal tract-tracing studies. This system also includes regions of dense intrinsic connectivity throughout the system, some of which were identified previously as part of the backbone of neural communication across the brain. These results reinforce the existing evidence for a whole-brain system that supports the modeling and regulation of the body's internal milieu.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• It’s not the thought that counts: Allostasis at the core of brain function

  Neuron · 2025-10-15 · 17 citations

  reviewOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Within-Person Changes in Emotional Complexity are Associated with Concurrent Changes in Mental Health Symptoms

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Affect regulation and Beta Amyloid: Maturational Factors in Aging and Age-Related Pathology

  NIH · $4.2M · 2017–2024

• Collaborative Research: Threat Perception Following Mass Violence Events

  NSF · $305k · 2014–2017

• NIH Grant R03MH056910

  NIH · $33k · 1998

• RAPID: Threat Perception on the First Anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombings

  NSF · $50k · 2014–2015

Frequent coauthors

• Lisa Feldman Barrett

  291 shared

• Lisa M. McAndrew

  94 shared

• Jolie B. Wormwood

  University of New Hampshire

  45 shared

• Drew A. Helmer

  Foundation for Advancing Veterans Health Research

  42 shared

• Jordan E. Theriault

  Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging

  40 shared

• Marta Bianciardi

  37 shared

• Lawrence L. Wald

  30 shared

• Bradford C. Dickerson

  Massachusetts General Hospital

  30 shared

Education

• Other, AEGD

  Temple University School of Dentistry

  2005

• Other

  Tufts University School of Dental Medicine

  2004