Pitt Psychiatry extends a warm welcome to three new clinical faculty members: Patrick Buckley, MD, MBA (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry) Dr. Buckley received his MD and MBA from the University of Virginia in 2018, then came to Pittsburgh for psychiatry residency training at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH) in the Academic Administrator Clinician Educator (AACE) Track. He served as Chief Resident of...

Please join us in congratulating Benjamin Handen, PhD (Professor of Psychiatry), who has received the 2023 American Psychological Association (APA) Division 33 Edgar A. Doll Award. Division 33 of the APA is dedicated to advancing psychological research, professional education, and clinical services that increase quality of life in individuals with intellectual & developmental disabilities/autism spectrum disorder...

Please join us in congratulating Danella Hafeman, MD, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry), who has received the 2023 Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) Gerald R. Klerman Award. The Klerman award honors outstanding clinical research achievement by a BBRF young investigator. Dr. Hafeman is a clinical expert in pediatric mood disorders and her research focuses on the prediction of bipolar disorder in...

Pitt Psychiatry extends a warm welcome to two new faculty members: Feng Li, MD, PhD (Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry) Dr. Li received his MD in clinical medicine from Shandong First Medical University (2001) and his PhD in endocrinology and metabolism from Shanghai Jiao-Tong University School of Medicine in China (2012). He completed residency training at Shanghai Xin-Hua Hospital in the Shanghai...

Despite the prevailing focus on executive functioning impairments as primary contributors to clinical outcomes in individuals with psychosis, the contribution of sensory disruptions to disease morbidity in psychosis is receiving increasing attention among scientists who study schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Reductions in neurophysiological markers of both auditory and visual early perceptual processing...

Theoretical models of neural mechanisms underlying cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for major depressive disorder propose that psychotherapy changes neural functioning of prefrontal cortical regions associated with cognitive-control processes, as well as brain regions involved in threat- or salience-related reactivity. However, individuals with major depressive disorder can be vulnerable to recurrence of depression...

We are delighted to announce that Layla Banihashemi, PhD, has been promoted to Associate Professor of Psychiatry by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Banihashemi earned her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh. She then joined the Department of Psychiatry as a postdoctoral scholar in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute T32 training program in cardiovascular behavioral...

Determining how disrupted neural activity gives rise to compulsive behaviors is vital for understanding obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It is commonly thought that compulsive behaviors and cognitive rigidity share a pathological neural substrate owing to an association between compulsive behavior and abnormal performance and reaction times during reversal learning tasks in OCD. However, it is unknown whether...

Pitt Psychiatry extends a warm welcome to two new faculty members: Claire Becker, MD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry) Dr. Becker earned her MD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019, then completed her general psychiatry residency training at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH) in the Academic Administrator Clinician Educator track. Following residency training, Dr. Becker undertook a clinical fellowship...

In treatment of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is use of stimulant medication associated with subsequent use of alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, or other drugs? Investigators including Brooke Molina, PhD (Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Pediatrics), and Traci Kennedy, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), from Pitt Psychiatry, conducted a cohort study of 579 children ages 7...