About

Scott Langenecker, PhD, is a clinical neuropsychologist and a Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Ohio State College of Medicine. His clinical expertise focuses on assessing and treating mood and anxiety disorders, particularly in late adolescents and young adults. His research efforts are centered on key life transitions where support systems and stressors may change, increasing the risk for the emergence or worsening of brain illnesses. He aims to better understand the causes of mood disorders with the ultimate goal of improving patients’ quality of life. Dr. Langenecker's current projects include developing and adapting innovative biological and cognitive tools to better identify, support, and treat individuals with mood disorders. His research interests encompass lifespan models of mood disorders, neuropsychology, neuroimaging task development, and brain changes associated with intervention. He is involved in neuroimaging studies and innovations in skill development and intervention development. His work is supported by memberships in professional organizations such as the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the International Neuropsychological Society, and the Society of Biological Psychiatry.

Research topics

• Psychiatry
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Medicine
• Clinical psychology
• Neuroscience
• Internal medicine
• World Wide Web
• Demography
• Medical education
• Family medicine
• Nursing
• Multimedia
• Developmental psychology
• Applied psychology
• Internet privacy

Selected publications

• A New frontier in assessing functional and cognitive impediments in psychiatric disorders and avenues for mitigation and treatment: a special issue about rumination, cognitive performance, and depressive symptoms

  Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology · 2026-01-23

  article1st author

  In this introduction to this special issue, we describe how rumination (habitual, negative, perseverative thought processes) plays a critical role in the experience of depression and anxiety, the cognitive decrements common to these disorders, and daily functioning. We argue that the traditional concept of depression as a functional disorder is limiting, given what is now known about brain processes underlying depression, in addition to the impact of psychological mechanisms like rumination on cognitive functioning. We go on to summarize the seven original empirical studies that compose this special issue. Together, these studies incorporate work across the lifespan and include multiple contexts and modalities in which depressive symptoms and rumination were meaningfully evaluated. We challenge researchers and clinicians alike to better understand the day-to-day cognitive implications and treatments for rumination. We conclude with recommendations for neuropsychologists in clinical practice that can be easily implemented to provide a better understanding of the role of rumination and other psychological mechanisms common to psychiatric disorders, including measures to include in a test battery and patient behaviors to look for. Ultimately, we hope that this issue can provide guidance for the treatment team, employers, educators, and family members affected by these conditions.

  PublisherDOI

• Cortical thickness associated with past year mood episode in major depressive and bipolar disorders

  Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging · 2026-01-28 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder are affective disorders that carry substantial disease burdens, yet the structural brain alterations due to recent mood episodes remain unclear. To identify acute effects on brain structure, we compared cortical thickness in adults with and without a mood episode in the past year. METHODS: Participants were 30 adults who met lifetime DSM-5 criteria for MDD (n=21) or BD (n=9), divided into a Past Year Mood Episode (PYME) group (n=18), and no-PYME group (n=12). Participants completed the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D), Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) and the semi-structural Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation (LIFE) interview over the year preceding their structural MRI. RESULTS: The PYME group exhibited greater cortical thickness than the no-PYME group in the left medial orbitofrontal cortex, bilateral V1 primary visual cortex (more extensive in the left hemisphere than the right), left V3 and right V2 visual cortices, and the bilateral hippocampus and left presubiculum. CONCLUSION: Recent mood episodes are linked to increased cortical thickness, possibly reflecting acute compensatory inflammatory responses. Cortical thickness thus shows promise as a transdiagnostic biomarker of recent mood episodes, aiding interpretation of studies that include individuals who are currently euthymic but recently symptomatic.

  PublisherDOI

• Beyond accuracy: facial emotion perception bias in people with HIV in Uganda

  Journal of NeuroVirology · 2026-03-02

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Neural predictors of treatment outcome through emotion regulation in internalizing disorders: a narrative review

  Translational Psychiatry · 2026-03-07

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Internalizing disorders such as depressive and anxiety disorders are prevalent, disabling, and characterized by difficulty managing emotions particularly in the context of negative information. Despite the availability of empirically supported treatments, response to these treatments remains heterogeneous. Accruing data indicate neural predictors of treatment response have the potential to contribute to precision medicine to improve treatment outcomes. This review evaluates functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that examined explicit (e.g., effortful) and implicit (e.g., automatic) emotion regulation involving negative stimuli and treatment response. Results showed treatments mostly consisted of cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure therapy, and/or pharmacotherapy. Explicit regulation findings were predominantly based on cognitive reappraisal, which showed pre-treatment activity in medial and lateral prefrontal cortices frequently served as predictors of treatment response. Regarding directionality, greater symptom improvement was generally associated with lower baseline activity in these regions. Results suggest patients with less baseline explicit regulation capacity may benefit more from treatment. For implicit regulation, most studies utilized emotional interference tasks. Predictors frequently involved prefrontal cortical regions and anterior cingulate cortex; here, the direction was largely that of more baseline activity predicting greater symptom improvement. Findings suggest treatment may leverage greater pre-existing implicit regulatory capacity. While baseline activity in other regions during explicit and implicit regulation were reported, including regions central to emotion processing (e.g., amygdala), results were less consistent. Despite these insights, substantial gaps in the literature were observed. For explicit regulation, studies predominantly focused on cognitive reappraisal, an adaptive regulation approach. Furthermore, the majority of studies consisted of major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder with insufficient representation of other internalizing disorders. Findings underscore the relevance of neural predictors of treatment outcome through emotion regulation in internalizing disorders. However, further study is needed to determine their contribution in precision medicine.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Family Resilience and Mental and Physical Health Sequelae of Pediatric TBI in Youths

  JAMA Network Open · 2026-04-13

  articleOpen access

  Importance: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) in children and adolescents is associated with mental and physical health sequelae, including elevated risks of anxiety, depression, persistent headaches, and chronic physical pain. However, factors that may be associated with the risk of these adverse outcomes and with improved recovery remain underexplored. Objective: To examine associations between medically diagnosed TBI and mental (anxiety and depression) and physical (frequent headaches and chronic pain) health outcomes among US children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years and to evaluate whether these associations vary by level of family resilience. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional study used data from the 2022 and 2023 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH), a nationally representative survey conducted by the US Census Bureau and sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The NSCH collects caregiver-reported data on child and adolescent health, family context, and social determinants across all 50 US states and the District of Columbia. This study included children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years whose parents reported medically diagnosed TBI and a comparison group without medically diagnosed TBI. Children and adolescents with comorbidities were excluded. Survey weights accounted for complex sampling to generate nationally representative estimates. Data analysis was done from June 1 to November 13, 2025. Exposures: Medically diagnosed TBI. Main Outcomes and Measures: Current status and severity of medically diagnosed anxiety, depression, frequent or severe headaches (including migraine headaches), and chronic physical pain. Moderators included adverse childhood experiences, child and adolescent flourishing, and family resilience. Results: Among 33 572 participants, 1195 individuals (3.5%; 47.0% [95% CI, 41.2%-52.9%] female; 46.5% [95% CI, 41.0%-52.0%] aged 15-17 years) had a history of medically diagnosed TBI and 32 377 individuals (96.4%; 54.0% [95% CI, 52.9%-55.1%] female; 51.7% [95% CI, 50.6%-52.8%] aged 6-11 years) had no TBI. Children and adolescents with TBI had a significantly higher prevalence of poor health than those without TBI (eg, current anxiety: 12.9% [95% CI, 9.3%-16.5%] vs 4.7% [95% CI, 4.3%-5.0%]; adjusted prevalence ratio, 1.83 [95% CI, 1.38-2.43]). They had increased odds of current anxiety (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.87 [95% CI, 1.31-2.67]), depression (aOR, 1.98 [95% CI, 1.13-3.47]), frequent headaches (aOR, 7.76 [95% CI, 2.71-22.20]), and chronic pain (aOR, 3.99 [95% CI, 1.81-8.77]). Interaction analyses showed evidence of effect modification on the multiplicative (OR) scale for depression, with higher odds observed at moderate (aOR, 5.64 [95% CI, 1.13-28.20]; P = .04) and low (aOR, 6.41 [95% CI, 1.24-33.20]; P = .03) resilience levels compared with the reference group (no TBI × high resilience). Conclusions and Relevance: In this study, family resilience was associated with variation in the association between TBI and depression. These findings support further investigation of family-focused rehabilitation approaches in prospective studies.

  PublisherDOI

• Keying Into Cognition: Temporal Smoothing of Smartphone Typing Behaviors for Passive Assessment of Processing Speed and Executive Function in Individuals With Mood Disorders

  Cognitive Computation · 2026-04-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Cognitive deficits commonly affect everyday life for individuals with mood disorders, even between mood episodes. Monitoring of these symptoms can pose several challenges due to the limitations of current methods, prompting the need for enhanced modalities to unobtrusively and objectively measure cognitive function and its fluctuations in individuals. This study explored the feasibility of passively assessing processing speed and executive function, traditionally measured by the trail-making test part B (TMT-B), using smartphone keyboard typing behaviors and assessed how diurnal patterns may impact cognitive function. Through a novel method of temporal smoothing of smartphone typing behaviors via graph-regularized singular value decomposition, we engineered features to capture typing regularity as a proxy for diurnal patterns and sleep. These features were added to machine learning models constructed to predict TMT-B performance and evaluated for improvement in model performance. Of the models tested, a random forest model built with the addition of typing regularity features performed the best with the lowest RMSE and MAE of 0.769 and 0.644, respectively. Our findings suggest that aspects of individuals’ cognitive function, specifically processing speed and executive function, can be estimated through their smartphone typing behaviors without the need for clinical or demographic input, and these estimates are improved with additional information capturing diurnal patterns and estimated sleep. This objective approach, passively administered in-the-wild, has the potential to supplement current methods of cognitive assessment and provide a more detailed report of cognitive fluctuations and the influence of diurnal patterns on cognitive function in individuals with mood disorders.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cultural adaptation of the facial emotion perception test for use in Zimbabwe: A pilot study

  South African Journal of Psychiatry · 2025-05-28

  articleOpen access

  Background: In African countries, including Zimbabwe, about half of those with depression respond to first-line therapies like problem-solving therapy. Predicting who needs more intensive treatment is challenging. In the US and Europe, tools like the Facial Emotion Perception Test (FEPT) help match treatments to likely responders. However, its applicability in Zimbabwe is unexplored. Aim: To develop a racially diverse adaptation of the FEPT for Shona-speaking Zimbabweans. Setting: Outpatient primary healthcare clinics at Marondera Provincial Hospital and Chitungwiza Central Hospital, Zimbabwe. Methods: Facial Emotion Perception Test was adapted using the Ecological Validity Model's eight constructs through a four-step process: expert consultation, preliminary content adaptation, iterative content adaptation, and finalising adaptation. Three focus groups and 12 cognitive interviews assessed cultural appropriateness, suitability, usability and acceptability of FEPT for Zimbabwean Shona speakers. Fifteen participants, including graduates, primary healthcare workers and individuals with lived experience of depression, took part. Results: Key adaptations of FEPT-Multiple-Races (MR)-Shona include: (1) added 20 black and 20 Asian face stimuli for cultural relevance; (2) improved stimuli resolution for clarity; (3) extended test duration from 6 to 10 minutes for repeatable tutorials; (4) provided bilingual instructions in Shona and English; (5) shifted to a low-cost touchscreen tablet, familiar to Zimbabwean participants. Conclusion: The adaptation shows promising cultural relevance and usability for Shona speakers. Further testing with diverse educational and contextual backgrounds is needed to enhance cross-cultural and ecological validity. Contribution: This study highlights the importance of culturally adapting cognitive performance tools that can potentially improve depression treatment outcomes in low-income countries.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 36. ANOTHER DUALISM: COGNITIVE VERSUS PERSONALITY PREDICTORS OF RUMINATION IN LATER LIFE DEPRESSION

  American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry · 2025-07-15

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Assessment of cognitive function in bipolar disorder with passive smartphone keystroke metadata: a BiAffect digital phenotyping study

  Frontiers in Psychiatry · 2025-03-06 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  Background: Cognitive dysfunction in bipolar disorder persists in the euthymic state and has been shown to be associated with a number of negative sequelae including treatment resistance and increased risk of relapse. There has been recent attention on digital phenotyping and passive sensing through smart, connected devices to probe cognition in real-world settings. BiAffect is a custom-built smartphone keyboard that captures keystroke metadata ('how you type, not what you type'). In previous studies, our group has demonstrated that BiAffect-derived keystroke metadata is associated with cognitive domains like processing speed. For the present study, we hypothesized that typing metadata would be significantly associated with executive function and planning. Methods: 18 participants with bipolar disorder and 12 healthy comparison participants from the Prechter Longitudinal Study of Bipolar Disorder at the University of Michigan were provided a mobile phone with a customized keyboard that passively collected keystroke metadata. Participants also completed a neuropsychological battery including the Tower of London task. Irregularities in typing and times to make a move on the Tower of London task were compared using sample and Shannon entropy, respectively. Results: = .006), as well as variability of clinician-rated depressive symptoms and self-rated impulsive actions and feelings. Conclusions: This pilot study demonstrates that passive, unobtrusive smartphone keystroke metadata can be used to probe cognitive function and dysfunction in bipolar disorder, revealing multi-scalar behavioral features accessible through digital assays.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 261. Psychotherapy Leads to Altered Cross-Network Connectivity of Posterior Cingulate (PCC) With Central Executive Network: Replications in Four Independent Studies With Two Independent Pre-Registered Hypotheses

  Biological Psychiatry · 2025-04-09

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01MH101487

  NIH · $2.5M · 2018

• NIH Grant R01MH091811

  NIH · $2.3M · 2015

• NIH Grant K23MH074459

  NIH · $643k · 2013

Frequent coauthors

• Katie L. Bessette

  University of California, Los Angeles

  144 shared

• Sara L. Weisenbach

  Harvard University

  133 shared

• K. Luan Phan

  The Ohio State University

  106 shared

• Robert C. Welsh

  University of Utah

  96 shared

• Jon‐Kar Zubieta

  University of Utah

  75 shared

• Melvin G. McInnis

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  66 shared

• Lisanne M. Jenkins

  Northwestern University

  61 shared

• Natania A. Crane

  University of Illinois Chicago

  60 shared

Awards & honors

• National Institutes of Health awards $19.5 million to Ohio S…