In the News

James G Blakemore Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences Warren Taylor, M.D., and his team recently worked with engineering collaborators at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt medical student Ryan Ahmed to examine a deep learning method that could estimate accelerated brain aging.  While accelerated brain aging in depressed older adults was associated with disability and cognitive performance, it was not predictive of response to antidepressant medication. Learn more here.

Assistant professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences Mary Elizabeth Wood, Ph.D., ABPP, recently became Board-certified in Forensic Psychology by the American Academy of Professional Psychology (ABPP). In addition, Dr. Wood was the principal author/investigator on the following peer-reviewed publications: 

Brain imaging studies have shown structural and functional abnormalities in people with psychosis in the connections between the cortex and the thalamus, the major waystation for incoming sensory information and a critical regulator of cortical activity. A new study shows that those differences are not present during development, but that the integrity of the connections is compromised in youth with psychosis spectrum symptoms.

Catatonia, characterized by motor, behavioral and affective abnormalities, frequently co-occurs with delirium during critical illness. Advanced age is a known risk factor for development of delirium. However, the association between age and catatonia has not been described. We aim to describe the occurrence of catatonia, delirium, and coma by age group in a critically ill, adult population. First Author: Vanderbilt Medical Student Jennifer Connell Senior Author: Jo Ellen Wilson, MD, MPH 

Over the last decade, we have seen an increase in survival rates from critical care stays. However, critical care survivors are at increased risk for long-term physical, psychological, and cognitive impairments. 

SENSE Theatre is an art intervention research program for youth with autism.

Warren D. Taylor, M.D., MHSc, James G Blakemore Professor of Psychiatry, served as lead author of a new publication proposing how dysfunction in the dopamine system may influence depression in older adults. This may influence risk for depression but also serve as a new target for treatment.  The manuscripts provides the rationale for a current multi-site study being conducted at Vanderbilt examining the effect of levodopa (Sinemet) on late-life depression. The paper appears in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. 

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences has received an additional $4 million from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to study the evolution of hippocampal dysfunction in the early stage of psychosis.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience distinct physical changes – including a higher body mass index and advanced pubertal onset – that could heighten social stressors, according to research led by Blythe Corbett, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.