Diana Waters, MD

 

 

 

Clinically, I am interested in geriatric psychiatry and would like to pursue a fellowship following residency. I love hearing stories from older people and using my medical training to create psychiatric plans that consider their often-numerous medical conditions. Research-wise, I am interested in the circuitry underlying mood disorders. I would like to put these two interests together to develop circuit modifying interventions that minimize the cognitive side effects commonly seen in the elderly.

The research track residency has incredible physician-scientist mentors, provides more dedicated research time than most other programs, and a generous stipend. I also greatly appreciate the strong medicine foundation built during intern year.

Prior to medical school, I worked as a lab technician for Dr. Elliott Mufson at Barrow Neurological Institute studying the pathological proteins that underlie Alzheimer’s Disease. In medical school, I work two full years in Dr. Kafui Dzirasa’s Laboratory for Psychiatric Neuroengineering at Duke studying reward and anxiety networks in a mouse model of bipolar disorder. As a Duke research-track resident, I am excited to continue my work with Dr. Dzirasa to better understand mood disorder circuitry.

• Mufson, E. J., Mahady, L., Waters, D., Counts, S. E., Perez, S. E., DeKosky, S. T., Ginsberg, S. D., Ikonomovic, M. D., Scheff, S. W., & Binder, L. I. (2015). Hippocampal plasticity during the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Neuroscience, 309, 51–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2015.03.006

Poster Presentation

• Waters, D., Hughes, D., McClung, C., & Dzirasa, K. (2019, October 18). Developing a Behavioral Task to Assay Positive and Negative Valences in a Mouse Model of Bipolar Disorder [poster presentation]. Molecular Psychiatry Association 2019 National Meeting, San Francisco, CA.