Publications

Scientists representing an international consortium of labs—including postdoctoral associate Despoina Aslanoglou, PhD, Kenneth Fish, PhD, and the study’s senior author, Zach Freyberg, MD, PhD, from Pitt Psychiatry—has published a new study in Science Advances, reporting new insights into the organization of the endoplasmic reticulum. The endoplasmic reticulum is a membrane network within a cell that is important in...

Research has demonstrated that impaired decision-making is a key factor in the onset of suicidal behavior and can manifest as difficulty choosing between two similarly valued options or as impulsivity in decision-making. To better understand the potential relationship between decision-making and suicidal behavior, scientists have examined the neural underpinnings of each and found disrupted ventromedial prefrontal...

Recent research has shown that forms of suicidal behavior predict future occurrences of the same type of behavior. As suicide rates have increased nationwide in recent years, so has non-fatal suicidal behavior—including suicidal ideation, planning for an attempt and making an attempt. In an article published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, Maria Kovacs, PhD, reported on the impact of impaired mood repair—the...

Treatment for substance use disorders, devastating and pervasive illnesses, are complicated by a high propensity for relapse. Relapse can occur when an individual encounters a familiar stimulus that has, in the past, induced cravings. One strategy for potentially preventing relapse is to weaken these maladaptive memories. Two approaches for doing so include interfering with memory reconsolidation—disrupting the...

The delivery of effective medical and psychiatric treatments in later life can be complicated by the presence of multiple co-occurring conditions. Three such conditions—obesity, diabetes and dementia—co-occur in older adults more frequently than can be expected by chance. While studies have demonstrated that diabetes, high blood pressure and high body mass index in midlife predict dementia in late life, in late...

Bernie Devlin, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical and Translational Science, earned his PhD in botany, conducting his early research in plant biology. His postdoctoral research in genetics in plant populations ignited a career-long love for statistical modeling, and today he is an internationally recognized expert in building statistical models to understand the genetic epidemiology of simple and complex...