Aaron Felix Alexander-Bloch
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Attending Psychiatrist, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Attending Psychiatrist, Penn Psychosis Evaluation and Recovery Center Clinic
Department: Psychiatry
Graduate Group Affiliations
Contact information
Richards Biomedical Research Laboratories, B504
3700 Hamilton Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
3700 Hamilton Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Publications
Education:
AB (Philosophy)
Harvard College, 2006.
MPhil (Computational Biology)
University of Cambridge, 2008.
PhD (Neuroscience)
University of Cambridge, 2013.
MD (Medicine)
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 2015.
AB (Philosophy)
Harvard College, 2006.
MPhil (Computational Biology)
University of Cambridge, 2008.
PhD (Neuroscience)
University of Cambridge, 2013.
MD (Medicine)
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 2015.
Post-Graduate Training
Psychiatry Resident, Neuroscience Research Training Program, Yale University School of Medicine, 2015-2019.
Postdoctoral fellowship in brain imaging-genomics, Yale University, 2015-2019.
Permanent linkPsychiatry Resident, Neuroscience Research Training Program, Yale University School of Medicine, 2015-2019.
Postdoctoral fellowship in brain imaging-genomics, Yale University, 2015-2019.
Description of Clinical Expertise
PsychosisDescription of Research Expertise
Dr Alexander-Bloch investigates normal brain development and the altered developmental trajectories that lead to mental illness. As the Director of the Brain-Gene Development Lab, he leads a multi-disciplinary team that uses advanced computational approaches to analyze large-scale imaging, clinical, and genomics data. Their goal is to translate the highly polygenic risk for psychosis and other neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders into pathophysiologic mechanisms, to inform therapeutic targets and improve risk assessment. Dr. Alexander-Bloch has a history of pioneering approaches that have become widely used by the broader field. His areas of expertise lie at the intersection of advanced multimodal MRI methods, neurotypical brain maturation, and rare and common genetic variants that confer psychiatric risk.Selected Publications
Fan XR, He Y, Wang YS, Li L; Lifespan Brain Chart Consortium (LBCC); China Autism Brain Imaging Consortium (CABIC); Duan X, Zuo XN.: Profiling brain morphology for autism spectrum disorder with two cross-culture large-scale consortia. Commun Biol 8: 1157, Aug 2025.Sha Z, Warrier V, Bethlehem RAI, Schultz LM, Merikangas A, Sun KY, Gur RC, Gur RE, Shinohara RT, Seidlitz J, Almasy L, Andreassen OA, Alexander-Bloch AF*.: The overlapping genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders and cortical brain structure. Nature Mental Health Aug 2025 Notes: doi: 10.1038/s44220-025-00475-7, *senior author.
Sha Z, Sun KY, Jung B, Barzilay R, Moore TM, Almasy L, Forsyth JK, Prem S, Gandal MJ, Seidlitz J, Glessner JT, Alexander-Bloch AF.: Copy Number Variant Architecture of Child Psychopathology and Cognitive Development in the ABCD Study. Am J Psychiatry 182: 763-778, Aug 2025.
Dorfschmidt L, White S, Gardner M, Bedford S, Ball G, Edwards AD, Gu Y, He Y, Huang H, Karandikar S, Kyriakopoulou V, Ouyuang M, Pulli EP, Raznahan A, Robinson EC, Romero-García R, Satterthwaite TD, Schabdach J, Sebenius I, Sha Z, Shinohara RT, Tuulari J, Vaghi MM, Vogel J, Váša F, Williams L, Zimmerman D; Lifespan Brain Chart Consortium; Warrier V, Wagstyl K, Bullmore ET, Bethlehem RAI, Seidlitz J, Alexander-Bloch A.: Charting structural brain asymmetry across the human lifespan. bioRxiv Jul 2025.
Mandal AS, Shinohara RT, Jung B, Gardner M, Akouri HE, Yerys BE, Guthrie W, Janke KM, Herrington JD, Hocking MC, Ball G, Payne JM, North KN, Muhlert N, Garg S, Seidlitz J, Fisher MJ, Alexander-Bloch A.: NF1-specific growth charts for head circumference over the first three years of life. medRxiv Jun 2025.
Pecci-Terroba C, Lai MC, Lombardo MV, Chakrabarti B, Ruigrok ANV, Suckling J, Anagnostou E, Lerch JP, Taylor MJ, Nicolson R, Georgiades S, Crosbie J, Schachar R, Kelley E, Jones J, Arnold PD, Seidlitz J, Alexander-Bloch AF, Bullmore ET, Baron-Cohen S, Bedford SA, Bethlehem RAI.: Subgrouping autism and ADHD based on structural MRI population modelling centiles. Mol Autism 16: 33, Jun 2025.
Gardner M, Shinohara RT, Bethlehem RAI, Romero-Garcia R, Warrier V, Dorfschmidt L; Lifespan Brain Chart Consortium; Shanmugan S, Thompson P, Seidlitz J, Alexander-Bloch AF*, Chen AA. *co-senior author: ComBatLS: A Location- and Scale-Preserving Method for Multi-Site Image Harmonization. Hum Brain Mapp 46: e70197, Jun 2025.
Schabdach JM, Williams RMS, Logan J, Padmanabhan V, D'Aiello Iii R, Mclaughlin J, Gonzalez A, Krause EM, Tasian GE, Sotardi S, Alexander-Bloch A*.: From Scanner to Science: Reusing Clinically Acquired Medical Images for Research. AMIA Jt Summits Transl Sci Proc 2025: 471-480, Jun 2025 Notes: *senior author.
Sun KY, Schmitt JE, Moore TM, Barzilay R, Almasy L, Schultz LM, Mackey AP, Kafadar E, Sha Z, Seidlitz J, Mallard TT, Cui Z, Li H, Fan Y, Fair DA, Satterthwaite TD, Keller AS, Alexander-Bloch A*: Polygenic Risk, Psychopathology, and Personalized Functional Brain Network Topography in Adolescence. JAMA Psychiatry Jun 2025 Notes: *senior author.
Murtha K, Dorfschmidt L, Bethlehem RAI, Kang K, Vandekar S, Alexander-Bloch AF, Waller R, Seidlitz J.: Comparing Brain-Behavior Relationships Across Dimensional, Tail-Sampled, and Propensity-Matched Models. bioRxiv May 2025.