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.

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry Carissa Cascio, Ph.D., served as first author on a paper published in Brain Topography: A Journal of Cerebral Function & Dynamics. The paper, "Somatosensory Event-Related Potentials and Association with Tactile Behavioral Responsiveness Patterns in Children with ASD," refutes a popular (but untested) theory of sensory disturbances in autism, namely that behavioral hypo-responsiveness and hyper-responsiveness are both reactions to “overwhelming” sensory input.