News

With support from a U.S. Department of Defense award, Duke Psychiatry professor Christine Marx, MD, and her research team (including Duke Psychiatry's Raj Morey, MD, and Jennifer Naylor, PhD) will conduct a phase two randomized controlled clinical trial to evaluate whether a neurosteroid (pregnenolone) can improve psychological health, PTSD, and pain symptoms that are associated with chronic complex traumatic brain injury.

Anthony Finch, MD, was inspired to pursue geriatric psychiatry in part by experiences with his grandmother and his Catholic upbringing. Diverse training opportunities and encouragement from his residency director were factors in his decision to pursue a fellowship at Duke. Read on to learn more about Dr. Finch.

Amidst an unprecedented behavioral health crisis in North Carolina and across the country, the North Carolina Psychiatry Access Line (NC-PAL) has been working to expand access to behavioral health care to children and others throughout the state. NC-PAL leaders, staff, and partners gathered at a special event recently to celebrate the program’s five-year anniversary.

In the program ReMed, offered by the Kenan Institute for Ethics, pre-health students use movement, art, writing and photography to develop their sense of purpose and develop skills that will serve them well in a high-stress field. Duke Psychiatry's Warren Kinghorn, MD, ThD, is the faculty advisor for the program.

Melanie Bonner, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, was named assistant dean of student services for the School of Medicine, effective September 1.

Jade Wu, PhD, DBSM, behavioral sleep medicine psychologist and researcher in Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, recently published “Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications,” a book that provides tailored solutions to individuals experiencing sleep problems. It’s the culmination of years of research and clinical practice.

Kanecia Zimmerman, MD, PhD, MPH, a professor in Pediatrics, was appointed as faculty associate director of Engagement and Health Translation at the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). Joe McClernon, PhD, a professor in Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, was appointed as CTSI's faculty associate director of Partnerships and Integration.

Now in its 10th year, Bass Connections pits Duke research teams against real-world problems. Bass Connections has become one of the hallmark Duke experiences, with more than 4,600 students having participated in more than 800 projects. Duke Psychiatry's Nicole Schramm-Sapyta, PhD, co-leads the Bass Connections Brain and Society theme, one of the program’s six areas of focus.

Duke Psychiatry's Alison Adcock, MD, PhD, manages a lab that's working on using neurofeedback to help people improve outcomes on tasks. The overall goal is to help people learn how to increase their motivation while increasing activity in a region of the brain that is known to be involved in reward and motivation.

Duke Psychiatry's William Wetsel, PhD, works with chemicals similar to psychedelics such as LSD and psilocin (the psychoactive ingredient the body metabolizes from mushrooms) to figure out how they could help address anxiety, depression & addiction while not prompting hallucinogenic experiences.