Publications

More than 20 members of the Department of Psychiatry faculty conduct a wide range of research pertaining to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other psychotic disorders. Recent Pitt Psychiatry studies in Neuropsychopharmacology and Psychological Medicine present new findings pertaining to clinical high risk for psychosis and first-episode psychosis. Reduced GABA/glutamate in the thalamus of individuals at...

Pitt Psychiatry investigators including Amy Byrd, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), Vera Vine, PhD (postdoctoral fellow), Joseph Beeney, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), Lori Scott, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), J. Richard Jennings, PhD (Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Clinical and Translational Science), and Stephanie Stepp, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and...

In a recent study published in Nature Communications, a team of scientists asked, When making decisions, how does one decide whether to exploit known good options or explore potentially better alternatives? While scientists have previously worked to uncover how the brain arbitrates between exploration and exploitation using experiments with one or two options, natural environments present a multitude of choices. In...

The Huang, McClung, and Torregrossa Labs at the University of Pittsburgh’s Bridgeside Point II facility are part of the Department of Psychiatry’s Translational Neuroscience Program, which seeks to understand the neurobiological basis for complex human cognitive and emotional functions, and the manner in which alterations in the brain give rise to the types of disturbances in these functions that characterize...

Excessive gestational weight gain is associated with deleterious health consequences for both mothers and children. However, women who experience excessive gestational weight gain early in their pregnancies are at unique risk for serious health conditions including gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, hyperglycemia, gestational diabetes, and fetal macrosomia. In a recent Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology...

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share genetic and environmental risk factors, and in some cases, certain clinical features such as cognitive impairments and psychosis. Mitochondrial dysfunction is proposed to contribute to the functional, morphological, and molecular brain alterations that may underlie the common features of these disorders. However, mitochondria are critical for multiple biological processes...