In the News

Volney P. Gay, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Religious Studies, and Anthropology, has been asked by the Huffington Post to blog on the topics of psychology and religion. Dr. Gay's blogs will be published every two to three weeks. Two of his recent blog posts may be found here and here.  

VUMC has received a $9.4 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to test the effectiveness of a transdermal nicotine patch in improving memory loss in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease.

Carissa Cascio, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, and her lab members recently had one of their posters covered by Spectrum News (a press outlet associated with the Simons Foundation for Research) during the group's participation on the 2015 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Chicago recently.

Kimberly Brown, Ph.D. ABPP, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, was recently invited to serve on the next term of the National American Psychological Association's Council of Specialties.  The appointment is from 2016 to 2019.   Brown also received board certification in Forensic Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP).

Jeffrey Stovall, M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, was recently interviewed by Psychiatric News about his experience working with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) in New Orleans, LA, following Hurricane Katrina.  August 2015 marks 10 years since the Category-5 hurricane damaged and/or destroyed vast swaths of the coastal city.

Monicah Muhomba, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, recently received an American Psychological Association, Division 17, SCUCC 2015 Outstanding Contribution to Counseling Center Work Award due to the depth and breadth of her work as a counseling center professional and the cutting-edge nature of the data-driven Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) program at the Vanderbilt University Psychological & Counseling Center.

Michael G. Tramontana, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Pediatrics, was recently awarded funding from Shire Pharmaceuticals for an investigator-initiated research proposal entitled, "Treatment Outcomes with Lisdexamfetamine Dimesylate (Vyvanse) in Children with Traumatic Brain Injury-Related Attention Deficits."  It will be a two-year study that will extend and refine the work of a previous clinical  trial led by Dr. Tramontana that dealt primarily with adults (published in Brain Injury, 2014, 28 (11), 1461-1472).

A.J. Reid Finlayson, M.D., Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, was the lead author of a paper titled "Professional Sexual Misconduct: The Role of the Polygraph in Independent Comprehensive Evaluation," soon to be published by the Journal of Medical Regulation. Kimberly Brown, Ph.D., ABPP, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, is listed as second author of the paper.

Difficulty decoding sounds distinguishes children with autism from those with sensory processing disorder (SPD), a catch-all label for sensory abnormalities. The results, published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, suggest that among children with sensory problems, the exact nature of the sensory problem determines the diagnosis. Assistant Professor of Psychiatry Carissa Cascio, who was not involved in the study, was interviewed.