Psychiatry Residents Present Robust Research at the 8th Annual Psychiatry Research Pathway Symposium

The Psychiatry Research Pathway (PRP) Symposium provides UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital residents engaged in research the opportunity to present their work to fellow residents, faculty mentors, T32 postdoctoral research program directors, and interested members of our academic community. The PRP is led by Director and PRP alum Danella Hafeman, MD, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry), together with associate director Zachary Freyberg, MD, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Cell Biology).

The following PRP residents presented their research:

• Hannah Kline, MD, PhD (PGY2) – Motivational Drinking: A Comparison of Typical and Proximal Reasons for Drinking
• Alex Paim Diaz, MD, PhD (PGY2) – Effectiveness of a Brief, Rapid-Acting, Synergistic, Treatment Among Hospitalized Inpatients Following a Suicide Attempt
• Kalyan Tripathy, MD, PhD (PGY3) – Improvement in Youth Depression and Anhedonia Following Frontostriatal Neuromodulation Varies with Pre-Treatment Symptoms and Reward Circuit Dysfunction
• H. Nur Eken, MD (PGY4 & PRP Co-Chief Resident) – Clinical and Neurocognitive Correlates of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder: A Transdiagnostic Study in Individuals with Compulsive Behaviors
• Douglas Leffa, MD, PhD (PGY4 & PRP Co-Chief Resident) – Neurodevelopmental Roots: ADHD and Its Relationship to Alzheimer's Dementia in Older Age

Following the PRP presentations, 14 faculty members delivered brief “rapid-fire talks” answering the question, What is on the horizon in your field?  Thank you to the following individuals who shared insights on the following topics:

• Leonardo D’Aiuto, PhD - Serum Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) circRNAs for Schizophrenia Biomarker Discovery
• Fabio Ferrarelli, MD, PhD - Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation (tFUS)
• Thomas Karikari, PhD – Blood Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease
• Helmet Karim, PhD – Deep Learning and Structural Imaging
• Jessica Levenson, PhD - What Can Sleep Phenotypes Tell Us About the Development of Mood Disorders?
• Carla Mazefsky, PhD – Regulating Emotion in Autistic Adults, Children and Teens (REAACT)
• Vishwajit Nimgaonkar, MD, PhD – Rational Therapies for Schizophrenia
• Tharick Pascoal, MD, PhD – Neuroimaging Lab: Dementia Biomarkers
• Rui Peixoto, PhD - Postnatal Maturation of Corticostriatal Circuits in Neurodevelopmental Disorders
• Mary Phillips, MD, MD (CANTAB) – An Ongoing Large Mechanistic Trial of the Ketogenic Diet and Bipolar Disorder
• Konasale Prasad, MD – The CONCEPT Lab: Connecting Outcomes, Networks & Cognition for Early-Psychosis Therapeutics
• Adriane Soehner, PhD - Sleep Electroencephalogram (EEG) Features Are Promising Biomarkers of Psychiatric Disease Risk
• Tobias Teichert, PhD - Pittsburgh Center for Non-human Primate Mesoscopic Electrophysiology
• Frances Wang, PhD –The Power of Measure Development

Following the presentations, attendees gathered for a post-Symposium reception.

Thank you to all who presented and participated!