News

Jeffrey Swanson, PhD, can answer a lot of questions about gun violence. But as public shootings with multiple casualties have seemed to become an epidemic, Swanson has juggled a heavy schedule of media interviews in which reporters repeatedly ask a question he can't answer: why? In this article, he discusses some of the complexities of the issue.

Avion Simon and his siblings are among the more than 200,000 children and teens who have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID. Experts including Duke Psychiatry's Dr. Ernestine Briggs-King say—and research has demonstrated—that the trauma of losing a parent can have lifelong effects on our mental as well as physical health. This brief Scientific American documentary explores Avion's experience as an orphan, the effects of adverse childhood experiences and what can be done to minimize the long-term consequences of traumas like this one

Five decades ago, Duke psychologists Terrie Moffitt, PhD, and Avshalom Caspi, PhD, began working with a long-term study of 1,000 people in New Zealand to get a better perspective on how childhood factors may have led to adolescent behaviors, such as risk-taking. But after following all the children born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1972 and ‘73 for several decades, the married researchers’ questions began to shift: How were the childhood differences reflected in middle age health, and how is it, as the group enters its 50s, that they all seem to be aging at different rates?

Throughout his career at the Duke student counseling center, Joe Talley, PhD—also a professor in Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences—has tried to help students find their own sustainable solutions. He'll retire in June after 45 years of service.

Three Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences residents were awarded American Psychiatric Association (APA) and American Psychiatric Association Foundation (APAF) fellowships.

Four members of the Duke faculty have been elected members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, including Avshalom Caspi, PhD, Edward M. Arnett Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Terrie E. Moffitt, PhD, Nannerl O. Keohane University Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience. Caspi and Moffitt also hold faculty appointments in Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences.

In this article from the American Society on Aging's Generations Journal, Duke Psychiatry's Katherine Ramos, PhD, provides an overview about the mental health impacts of COVID-19 in the lives of older adults, with a special focus on isolation, loneliness and trauma. She elucidates the inequities seen in mental health impacts and offers a call to action for the future of older adult mental health care.

A new documentary from local TV station WRAL, "Pandemic Generation: Kids in Crisis," shines a light on the real, lasting impacts of remote learning, quarantine and the uncertainty our kids have endured over the past two years. Duke Psychiatry's Ernestine Briggs-King, PhD, Robin Gurwitch, PhD, and Gary Maslow, MD, MPH, are among the featured mental health experts.

Over the past year, leaders from the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, Office for Institutional Equity, Faculty Advancement, and Disability Management have met with Duke students and team members from the university and health system to discuss how to better ​​​support inclusion and equity efforts related to neurodiversity across the Duke campus.

A research team led by a three-time recipient of BBRF grants has successfully tested a method of using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a non-invasive method of brain stimulation, to activate an important depression-related target located deep within the brain. Several Duke Psychiatry faculty members are part of this team.