News

Watching short, web-based tutorials that inspire health care workers to contemplate awe, gratitude and kindness can promote enduring improvements in mental health outcomes such as depression and emotional exhaustion. The study, led by Duke Psychiatry's Bryan Sexton, PhD, was published December 8 in Frontiers in Public Health.

This winter and spring, 130 public schools across North Carolina will receive mental and behavioral health training and consultation through the North Carolina Psychiatry Access Line (NC-PAL). NC-PAL is a a collaboration between Duke University’s Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and the North Carolina Department of Health & Human Services.

The UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS) was awarded $40 million over five years to continue raising the standard of care and increasing access to services for children and their families across the U.S. who have experienced trauma. The NCCTS is co-directed by Lisa Amaya-Jackson, MD, MPH, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke and Jenifer Maze, PhD, in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA.

As the new director of the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences clerkship program, Cerrone Cohen, MD, an assistant professor in both psychiatry and behavioral sciences and family medicine and community health, recognizes the valuable opportunity the clerkship gives Duke University medical students, while also getting equally energized about the vital long-term role it can play in preparing students to help address the mental health crisis in the U.S.

A randomized study led by Columbia University and Duke Psychiatry's Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS, FRCP, determined that crossword puzzles have an advantage over computer video games for memory functioning in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.

Duke Interdisciplinary Studies highlights how collaboratory grants help Duke faculty grow ideas and build a foundation for larger external grants. One of the projects featured is a digital app designed to increase the accuracy of autism screening for young children—an interdisciplinary endeavor between the Duke Center for Autism & Brain Development and Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. This fall, the center was awarded a $12 million grant to develop AI tools for detecting autism during infancy and identifying biomarkers in the brain.

Courtney Gardner, MSN, a pediatric nurse practitioner in Marion, North Carolina, has seen a tremendous increase in depression and anxiety among her patients in the past few years. However, there are very few pediatric mental health specialists in rural McDowell County or nearby counties — certainly not enough to meet demand. That’s why she is grateful for the support of NC-PAL, a telephone consultation and continuing education program for primary care providers who treat pediatric or perinatal patients with mental health concerns.

All Babies and Children Thrive (ABC Thrive), an initiative of Bass Connections, has awarded follow-on grants to two interdisciplinary teams addressing barriers to services and supporting well-being for young children. One of these grants went to a team at the Duke Center for Autism & Brain Development, to integrate digital autism caregiver coaching into their screening and outcome monitoring tool, the SenseToKnow app. The app will provide information about best practices for early intervention and allow caregivers to track the child’s developmental progress.

Whether Duke Psychiatry's Angela Tunno, PhD, MS, is working with young patients at Duke or helping community-level systems serve trauma survivors with the Center for Child & Family Health, Dr. Tunno works to help children and families find healing. In recognition of her excellent and impactful work, she was named Blue Devil of the Week by Working@Duke this week.

Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons adults in the U.S. seek medical care. Opiates are often used as a pharmacological intervention, but they present a risk of substance use disorder. In an effort to develop an alternative form of treatment, Duke Psychiatry's Eric Elbogen, PhD, and his team turned to “neurofeedback,” or electroencephalograph (EEG) biofeedback treatment.