Psychiatry Advances

Carmen Andreescu is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. This podcast focusses on severe worry and anxiety in aged persons. Not all worry in aged persons is pathological. Severe worry includes dramatic effects on patient’s psychology, brain, and aging. These are characterized here as well as appropriate intervention/treatment noted. The value of Transcranial Stimulation(TMS) is noted.

Neil P. Jones Ph.D. is an expert on the spectrum of Depressions, including their diverse manifestations and impact on cognitive-behavioral processes, for example accompanying rumination, stress-related anxiety, and anhedonia. This podcast focuses on subtypes of depression relating to brain pathways.

Dr. Danella Hafeman MD, PHD is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the Principal Investigator of a NIMH Sponsored Clinical Trial titled “Neurobehavior Targets of Mindfulness in Youth at Risk for Mood-Disorders.” This podcast focuses on research methodology, manifestations, instruction and mindfulness interventions to reduce stress and mood lability among at risk middle school youth, thereby affecting key brain connectivity related to potential Bi-Polar outcomes among youth at risk.

Rebecca Thurston PhD. is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is a National/International authority on Menopause. This Podcast describes her groundbreaking and continuing research (25 years) on Menopause. This episode includes its manifestations, women's experience, and impact on physical and mental health. We also discuss menopause's effects on the mind, heart, and brain, and diverse interventions if clinically indicated.

A cancer diagnosis and treatment can be difficult on both patients and their families emotionally. But support is available for people who need it. In this podcast, Robin Valpey, MD, medical director, Center for Counseling and Support, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and Elizabeth Hale, MD, clinical assistant professor, Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, discuss the mental health care available for cancer patients and their loved ones from the beginning of treatment onward. They also discuss the role of psychiatrists in the comprehensive cancer care that UPMC provides.

This Podcast describes integrated care at UPMC/PITT between the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology. Psychiatric manifestations/treatment of Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Epilepsy, and Migraine are discussed with Morgan Faeder MD, PHD. Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Medical Director of Neuropsychiatry and Director of the Consultation- Liaison Psychiatry Fellowship, and Alex Israel MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Psychiatrist /UPMC Epilepsy and Headache Centers.

The University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry is involved in efforts to promote and implement Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). In this podcast, four faculty members offer brief presentations and discuss the importance of DEI. Guests include Sarah Pederson, PhD; Paul Pikonis, PhD; Piper Carroll, MD; and César Escobar-Viera, MD, PhD. They discuss linking the Department of Psychiatry to the Pittsburgh community; the psychiatry residency training curriculum; departmental surveys; and LGBTQ+ health matters.

Oliver Lindhiem PHD, Associate Professor/Psychiatry/Pediatrics is an expert in childhood diagnosis of behavioral disorders. This Podcast focuses on ADHD-Hyperactive Presentation. This diagnosis, its usual treatment (medication), has for many years been controversial. Thereby highly precise measurement is much needed here. This requires research to prove the value of mobile sensing using a wristband aid. This Podcast also discusses business development of this needed device for potential wide distribution.

Coleen McClung PHD is a nationally known researcher of Circadian Rhythms. She is funded by the NIMIH/NIDA/prominent Research Foundations. This Podcast focuses on these rhythms, present in all body/animal cells including humans. They are essential for life. Such rhythms may be altered in psychiatric disorders, e.g. Bi-Polar disorder, or other serious bodily diseases such as Cancer. These rhythms, natural and disordered, offer new approaches for effective treatment. Each of these issues is discussed.

Professor Bea Luna PHD is a nationally highly acclaimed NIMH- Funded psychologist, neuroscientist, teacher/mentor. Using multimodal brain imaging/learning methods she has pioneered in studying normal and atypical adolescent brain development from initiation to the onset of adulthood. These fascinating brain developments affected by adolescent experiences further prepare the brain for adult functioning. Adolescent risk-taking and other affects/brain development are explored in this Podcast.

Dr. Natacha De Genna PHD is an Assistant Professor with longstanding acclaimed work relating to marijuana and nicotine use by pregnant mothers, how young age and mental health and discrimination may affect both mothers and their children post pregnancy. Her video “Mothers and Marijuana” is featured on the NIH Web Site. Like alcohol, paired maternal use of both nicotine and marijuana can be especially toxic. Her work on both large and smaller data sets has clinical implications.

Khaled Moussawi MD, PHD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, is an experienced clinical neurologist and neuroscientist. This Podcast summarizes his research team’s efforts to identify and translate pre-clinical neurobiological findings into actionable clinical treatment protocols for alcohol and potentially other addictions. Deep Brain Stimulation, DBS, now approved treatment of Parkinson’s disease, holds such promise for patients with chronic severe alcohol use disorders.

Judith Morgan PhD is Associate Professor of Psychiatry. She observes mother-young child social interactions at play while simultaneously recording the brain cortical rhythms of each. Behaviors and neural responses of children at high risk for depression (their mothers are depressed) are compared with those of non-depressed mothers. This research gives rich information/prediction about behaviors, early child brain development-later emotional states, how maternal depression may impact upon the child brain.

Kymberly Young PhD is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is an expert in brain science. Her 2017 article in the AJP, “Randomized Clinical Trial of Real-Time fMRI Amygdala Neurofeedback for Major Depressive Disorder: Effects on Symptoms and Autobiographical Memory Recall” is gaining attention. This Podcast focuses on the amygdala, how therapeutically it can be brought “online” in the brain through calibrated patient self-efforts related to their memories.

Fabio Ferrarelli MD PHD, Director of the Sleep and Schizophrenia Program is Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focusses on how sleep spindles and slow waves differ among patients with chronic schizophrenia and/or acute psychosis relative to healthy individuals. These sleep-specific oscillatory activities may represent potential biomarkers and/or endophenotypes for schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders.

Rebecca Price PhD is Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Her innovative integrated research on brain plasticity coupled with computer based cognitive therapy has gained much visibility in the psychiatric literature and at Pitt where she has recently received the Chancellors Distinguished Research Award. This Podcast discusses her research work and methodology as this relates to Ketamine infusion for refractory depression and TBS, Transcranial Brain Stimulation in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Antoine Douaihy M.D. is Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine. He is a recognized expert in motivational interviewing. Joining him is his intern in clinical Psychology, Cassie Boness MS. Vaccine hesitancy threatens nationally needed Covid herd immunity. Motivational interviewing is a very useful approach for enlisting reluctant persons in self-change. Discussed here are the parameters and techniques of motivational interviewing as this applies to Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Sarah L. Pederson PhD is Associate Professor of Psychiatry. She is a national authority on alcohol use and its more serious social/psychological problems. Her research work is remarkable for its multi-causal personal assessments, racial and otherwise, e.g. measurements of impulsivity and other personal characteristics associated with drinking both in the laboratory and in vivo in the community. This Podcast also considers the effects of Covid-19, pre and now, upon drinking.

Marta Pecina MD PhD. is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Translational Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Lab of the Department of Psychiatry and the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital. This Podcast focuses on the Neurobiological basis of placebo effects. Placebos have great power. We explain how both expectation and conditioning generate strong placebo effects relevant to research and their therapeutic use. Ethical issues about placebo use are furthermore addressed.

Dr. Deepak Sarpal is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry/Medical Director of Services for Treatment of Early Psychosis at WPH. This Podcast focuses upon Clozapine, a very valuable but underused treatment for refractory schizophrenia, also brain science involving functional imaging associated with patient improvement on anti-psychotic drugs. Findings include brain pre-frontal cortex connectivity and synchronization of function with brain striatum, limbic system structures, Globus Pallidus.