by Emily Stembridge
Three faculty members from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences — Warren Taylor, MD, MHSc, Paul Newhouse, MD, and William Petrie, MD — were recently honored at the 2022 American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) Awards.
Taylor and Newhouse were named distinguished fellows of the AAGP, and Petrie received the AAGP Jeanne Jackson-Siegal Clinician of the Year Award. Additionally, Newhouse received the 2022 AAGP Distinguished Scientist Award.
Taylor, the James G. Blakemore Professor of Psychiatry and director of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, was named a distinguished fellow of the AAGP for his significant contributions to the field of late-life depression. Over the last 20 years, Taylor has
conducted research to better understand the occurrence and outcomes of depression in older adults with a focus on pathological brain aging. His work has bettered the understanding of neuroimaging related to depression.
Petrie, director of the outpatient geriatric psychiatry clinic, received the clinician of the year award for his dedication to drug treatment of Alzheimer’s disease including investigational treatments. His other clinical work includes examining the psychiatric aspects of Parkinson’s disease, the use of clozapine in elderly patients, impulse disorders in neurodegenerative illnesses and psychopharm- acologic interventions in the elderly.
Newhouse, the Jim Turner Professor of Cognitive Disorders and director of Psychiatry’s Center for Cognitive Medicine, was recognized as a distinguished fellow and received the distinguished scientist award for his research, which has focused on central nicotinic cholinergic mechanisms in degenerative brain disorders and the role of nicotinic receptor systems in normal and disordered cognitive functioning in humans, as well as the development of new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. He has also studied the interaction of estrogen and central cholinergic systems in relation to cognitive and emotional aging in the elderly and mentored successful junior researchers in the field of geriatric psychiatry.
“This is a great honor,” Newhouse said. “I am pleased to accept this on behalf of Vanderbilt, and it’s great to see that several of us have been honored by the AAGP. This award validates the research I’ve done to help us get better control of these illnesses and the importance of mentoring in our field. This was quite unexpected, and I’m very excited to be designated in this way.”