Funded projects

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), the purposeful, direct damage of one’s body without the intent to die, is a pervasive public health concern with clinically significant long-term consequences. Mindfulness – a core skill in DBT, an evidence-based treatment for NSSI, is designed to target emotion dysregulation and rumination and may be particularly relevant due to the proliferation […]

People with psychosis are admitted more frequently to inpatient psychiatric units and have a longer length of stay once admitted compared to those with other psychiatric conditions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for psychosis (CBTp) reduces hospital admissions when delivered in outpatient settings and facilitates quicker symptom improvement when delivered in inpatient settings. Despite this, implementation of […]

This clinical trial is designed to pilot an electroretinogram (ERG) biomarker for predicting treatment response to SSRIs in PTSD. Serotonergic brain centers project to the retina, and ERG allows assessment of brain serotonergic signals via retinal signals. In this study we are characterizing the ERG waveform in veterans with PTSD before and after SSRI administration. […]

Asian Indians, are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the country, growing from 1.9 million (2000) to 4.6 million (2020). With a median household income of $119,000, Asian Indians are highly educated (43% have a postgraduate degree), are proficient English speakers (82%) and are often touted as a “model minority”. While these data […]

This project will evaluate the effect of a debriefing workshop on the knowledge, attitudes, and practice of giving debriefs after adverse events among physicians and their trainees.

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by maladaptive self-focused attention (SFA), which itself is correlated with large scale brain network connectivity impairments. Cannabis use disorder (CUD) is commonly conceptualized as impaired reward processing within the ventral dopaminergic network, however, it is also implicated in connectivity disturbances in other critical cortical circuits. In the current study […]

This PTSD-focused methods-development EEG project aims to develop new tools for a) predicting PTSD treatment response, b) understanding the underlying biological process, and c) supporting the development of new treatments for PSTD. We are using an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm to develop non-invasive, easily implemented in clinic biomarker to provide useful information about the neurobiology […]

The purpose of this project is to enhance the usefulness and cultural relevance of the Spanish version of the PMQ-9, a questionnaire that assesses manic symptoms in individuals with bipolar disorder.

The gap between the number of people needing and accessing mental health care has led to the development of new types of mental health providers to help expand access to care. These providers, referred to as paraprofessionals, have typically at most a bachelor’s degree and treat mild and moderate depression and anxiety. However, because the […]

Though the focus of most research on dementia is the pathogenesis of cognitive deficits, neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are identified in >90% of those afflicted, resulting in hastened cognitive decline, worsened general health, reduced patient and caregiver quality of life, sooner institutionalization, and increased mortality. Affective symptoms, including depression, are the most common NPS in Alzheimer’s […]

The proposed research is a qualitative analysis of patient and clinician experiences during a pilot study of mHealth-delivered contingency management for the treatment of methamphetamine use disorder and will address perceived facilitators and reinforcing factors, barriers and limitations, and proposals for future improvements including specific recommendations regarding the intervention and its mode of delivery.

Despite increasing violence, verbal abuse, and threats against healthcare workers by hospitalized patients, few methods can accurately and efficiently screen patients for this outcome. Our project aims to create an algorithm powered by natural language processing—a form of artificial intelligence—to “read” clinical notes and identify high-risk patients prior to violent events. To ensure equitable care, […]

Schizophrenia is a prevalent, debilitating psychiatric disorder that is diagnosed based on clinical interviews that are subjective and highly variable; in fact, two patients can have no overlapping symptoms and be diagnosed with the same disease. While cardiologists have blood tests to help diagnose heart attacks and oncologists have PET scans to find hidden cancers, […]

Consultation-liaison psychiatrists are often asked to manage mood and anxiety symptoms experienced by patients admitted to medical and surgical floors of the hospital. This study aims to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of a self-directed mindfulness intervention as an adjunctive treatment for improving mood, anxiety, and perceived stress in medically hospitalized patients. Participants, consisting of […]

Approximately 20-25% of primary care patients have unhealthy alcohol use, which can have significant impacts on mental health. Screening for unhealthy alcohol use within primary care settings is increasingly used for point-in-time identification of people who could benefit from brief advice or brief interventions. My project will use a large, longitudinal, real-world dataset consisting of […]