“I think that everyone can agree that 2020 was not a traditional year. Following suit, ACNP 2020 was not a traditional meeting,” says Susanne Ahmari, MD, PhD, program chair for the 2020 American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) Annual Meeting. “However, although it was not the meeting we expected to plan when I stepped into my term as program chair, it ended up being an incredible combination of old and...

Many older adults experience sleep difficulties associated with insomnia. Difficulties with staying asleep are thought to arise partially from reduced sleep depth. Sleep depth can be operationalized as low frequency slow-wave (.5-4 Hz) electroencephalographic (EEG) activity during sleep. However, studies to date have not shown a consistent pattern of EEG differences between individuals with and without insomnia...

Young people who have parents or siblings with bipolar disorder are at higher risk for developing this disorder than are individuals without a family history. Among those high-risk youth, mood lability—rapid and frequent mood changes that can be disproportionate to current circumstances—is associated with psychosocial impairment and often predictive of future onset of bipolar disorder. A research team including...

EPINET: First-Episode Psychosis Research The UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH) Services for the Treatment of Early Psychosis (STEP) clinic is an outpatient program for the evaluation, treatment, and rehabilitation of people who may be experiencing early signs of a psychotic illness. STEP is one of 20 clinics across Maryland and Pennsylvania that will be included in an Early Psychosis Intervention Network...

Photo Credit: Meredith Spada, MD Pitt Psychiatry consultation-liaison faculty and trainees made the most of the virtual Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry annual meeting late last month and presented 12 posters and six symposia, workshops, or oral papers. Awards and Honors Patrick Buckley, MD (PGY3), who presented a poster entitled “Integrating Payer and Provider Data to Identify Factors Associated with...

We are pleased to announce that Khaled Moussawi, MD, PhD, has joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. Dr. Moussawi joins Pitt Psychiatry from the National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, where he was a clinical/postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Moussawi received his MD, and a PhD in neuroscience, from the Medical University of South Carolina before completing residency training in...

We are delighted to announce that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has honored Boris Birmaher, MD (Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Endowed Chair in Early Onset Bipolar Disease), with the 2020 Simon Bolivar Award. The award states that it honors a prominent advocate for Hispanics. Dr. Birmaher was born in Cali, Colombia, and earned his medical degree from the Valle College of Medicine in Colombia...

The 37th annual Pittsburgh Schizophrenia Conference presented advances in schizophrenia research to a virtual audience of more than 300 psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers, and researchers, as well as patients and their families. At UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH), K.N. Roy Chengappa, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, is Chief, Comprehensive Recovery Services (CRS), which serves patients with...

It is widely believed that naming emotions can promote mental and physical health. However, little is known about how the use of wide emotional vocabularies is associated with emotional functioning. From a linguistic perspective, emotional vocabularies can be understood within two domains: active vocabulary, words that an individual uses spontaneously, and passive vocabulary, the full range of words that an...

We are delighted to share that Kenneth Nash, MD (Professor and Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs, Department of Psychiatry, and Professor of Pediatrics), has been named a member of the American College of Psychiatrists. Members are psychiatrists who have demonstrated outstanding competence in the field, and who have achieved national recognition in clinical practice, research, academic leadership, and/or teaching. Dr...