Dr. Stephen Smagula, (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), did his doctoral work in epidemiology, followed by postdoctoral training in geriatric psychiatry and sleep research. Currently, his research focuses on the association between circadian activity pattern disruptions and depression in older adults, including those who are caregivers for individuals with dementia. Dr. Smagula is the 2022 recipient of the...

Visual spatial working memory, a core cognitive process, is dependent upon a cortical network composed of multiple nodes, including primary visual, posterior parietal, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. Within this network, information essential for proper visual spatial working memory function is transferred via projections furnished by pyramidal neurons located primarily in cortical layer 3. Across the primate...

Congratulations to Alex Israel, MD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry); Antoine Douaihy, MD (Professor of Psychiatry & Medicine); Julie Kmiec, DO (Associate Professor of Psychiatry); and Jessica Kettel, MD, PhD (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry), who have been honored for excellence in education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Curriculum Colloquium. Each year, the Pitt School of Medicine...

Congratulations to Amy Byrd, PhD, who was recently named an Association for Psychological Science (APS) Rising Star! The APS Rising Star designation is presented to outstanding APS members in the earliest stages of their research careers after completing doctoral training. Dr. Byrd’s research is focused on the neurobiological processes underlying the development and persistence of reactive aggression in adolescents...

Individuals with schizophrenia can experience auditory hallucinations and delusions, as well as disrupted cognitive and sensory processes that may result in functional impairment and long-term disability. In the cerebral cortex, pyramidal cells are essential to the cognitive and sensory processes that may be disrupted in schizophrenia. Postmortem studies of individuals with schizophrenia consistently show deficits...

The Department of Psychiatry Office of Residency Training (ORT)’s Respect, Responsibility and Empowerment in Medicine (RREM) Residency Curriculum is a required, four-year curriculum designed to educate Pitt Psychiatry residents on the social constructs of bias, how to serve as allies and advocates, and how to apply these skills and knowledge in the clinical and academic settings. Launched in January 2021, RREM...

Beatriz Luna, PhD (Staunton Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology) has received a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award. Dr. Luna is an internationally recognized developmental neuroscientist. Her research focuses on characterizing the changes in brain function that subserved the maturation of cognition by bridging developmental...

Acute stressors affect how we perceive the world, allocate our mental energy, and make decisions. Although the prefrontal cortex is known to be an essential brain region involved in adaptive behaviors related to stress, our understanding of the individual cell types and synaptic plasticity mechanisms in the prefrontal cortex is limited. In a recent study published in Neuron, a team of investigators including co...

Among scientists working in the field of autism spectrum disorder research, two models represent the most common understanding of the disorder’s genetic underpinnings: one posits that rare risk variants invariably have large impact on liability; the other emphasizes the major role played by common variations with small effects. On a population level, the common variation likely plays the dominant role in liability...

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a familial illness that is associated with functional impairment and increased risk for suicide and substance use. The disorder is highly heritable, and research has identified many common genetic variants associated with risk for the disorder. Studies including the Pittsburgh Bipolar Offspring Study (BIOS) have found that offspring of parents with BD are at elevated, specific risk to...