Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Ariel Deutch and colleagues have discovered that overactive brain immune cells during adolescence may contribute to schizophrenia.

With the aid of a four-year, $3.4 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will apply new techniques to investigate treatment resistance of two devastating mental disorders — major depressive disorder, which befalls 15 percent of people at some point in their lives, and schizophrenia, which affects approximately 1 percent.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s School-Based Psychiatry Program is now offering telemedicine services for children and families who may have barriers to accessing appointments with a practitioner through traditional clinics.

According to a new study by Vanderbilt researchers, normal brain aging patterns in patients with a psychotic disorder occur at an accelerated rate, impacting the patient’s cognitive functioning and suggesting treatment intervention in the early psychosis period may improve long-term outcomes.

Mike Mitchell, visual arts instructor at Father Ryan High School, and Meg Benningfield, MD, MSCI, division director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, have been close friends since their children enrolled in the same kindergarten six years ago.

Using data from the UK Biobank and Vanderbilt’s BioVU, a new study in the journal Molecular Psychiatry finds that approximately 4 percent of suicide attempt risk is captured by genotype data.

A new study examining stress and arousal across pubertal development in youth with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is now enrolling participants, thanks to a $2.3 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).