Research Faculty
Research Faculty
Roscoe Brady, M.D.
Overview of Research: Bipolar disorder, neurophysiology, genetics
Specific Research Interests: Dr. Brady’s research is focused on understanding the physiology of different mood states in bipolar disorder as well as the physiology underlying mood instability in bipolar disorder. He is also interested in identifying biomarkers that differentiate between bipolar and unipolar depression. Specific techniques used in these studies include fuctional MRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). For more information on Dr. Brady's research, click here.
Research Interests: Dr. Friedman is the Vice-Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry Director of Quality Improvement, and Director of the Forensic Psychiatry Service, and is part of the BIDMC Consultation Liaison psychiatry service. He has longstanding interests in psychosomatic medicine, geriatric psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, integrated care, medical training, mentoring, medical ethics, and quality improvement. Some particular areas of interest include medically unstable eating disorders, management of substance abuse in the general hospital setting, and capacity and patient refusal of care. He has worked and published with residents on a number of projects, including recent articles on cognitive decline in bipolar disorder, pseudologia fantastica, and mobile technology in mental health treatment.
Overview of Research: Dr. Friedman-Yakoobian's research focuses on the development and implementation of psychosocial interventions for individuals experiencing psychosis, or who are at high risk for developing psychosis, and their families. She is the Director of Research and Development at the Center for Early Detection and Response to Risk (CEDAR) clinic.
Overview of Research: Dr. Herschkopf has an interest in projects and scholarly writing related to bioethics, consultation-liaison psychiatry, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and religion/spirituality. Recent topics of projects on which she has collaborated with residents include the interaction of moral distress and countertransference, education around decisional capacity consults, and justice concerns around the rationing of psychotherapy.
Overview of Research: Neuroimaging and schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and developmental neuropsychiatric disorders
Specific Research Interests: Dr. Keshavan's neuroimaging research interests are focused on the structural, functional and neurochemical bases of severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and other developmental neuropsychiatric disorders. Clinical research interests include early intervention in schizophrenia, especially as it pertains to the premorbid and prodromal phases of this illness.
Overview of Research: Sleep medicine and neurophysiology
Specific Research Interests: The central focus of Dr. Kocsis's research is the subcortical regulation of hippocampal function and is guided by the general hypothesis that the role of this regulation is to build dynamic associations between several limbic structures that are synchronized by oscillatory population activity.
Overview of Research:Idiopathic psychotic disorders, neuroimaging (structural, perfusion, and retinal), vision science, non-invasive transcranial electrical stimulation, peripheral inflammation, and stem-cell derived brain microvascular endothelial cell dysfunction.
Specific Research Interests: Dr. Lizano's research interests are focused in two major areas. The first includes further understanding the effect of peripheral inflammation on microvascular and blood brain barrier dysfunction across the psychosis spectrum and utilizes in vivo blood based biomarkers and brain inmaging techniques as well as patient-specific stem cell models of brain microvascular endothelial cells to identify prognostic and treatment response predictors. The second area includes understandin the forle of visual dysfunction in chronic and early course schizophrenia by examings structural and functional deficits across the visual pathay (retina to visual cortex and associated networks(, as well as testing the therapeutic potential of high definition non-invasive transcranial electrical stimulation to the association visual cortex with the goal of improving visual hallucinations and visual processing.
Dr. Lizano's work was selected by the American Journal of Psychiatry as one of the seven most impactful manuscripts published by the journal in 2019.
Overview of Research: Neurocognition, cognitive enhancement/remediation, olfaction, and reward system functioning in schizophrenia; Consumer-based participatory mental health research.
Specific Research Interests: Dr. Mesholam-Gately’s research focuses on neurocognitive functioning throughout the course of schizophrenia (including the putatively prodromal/clinical high risk stage), the link between olfaction and the brain’s reward system in schizophrenia, and the improvement of current cognitive remediation efforts in schizophrenia, including the study of novel methods and the use of reward-enhancing strategies. She is also involved in consumer-based participatory mental health research with the “Consumer Advisory Board”, a mental health consumer-directed and staffed policy and research organization, and is currently leading a study examining consumer-clinician relationships in mental health.
Overview of Research: Behavioral health and transplantation
Specific Research Interests: This behavioral health research program represents a collaboration between the Department of Psychiatry and the BIDMC Transplant Center. Research in the program has four primary aims: (1) identification of the psychological and behavioral health sequelae associated with solid organ transplantation, (2) examination of the relationship between behavioral health variables and primary transplant outcomes (e.g., morbidity, mortality), (3) development, implementation, and evaluation of psychological and behavioral health interventions designed to enhance primary transplant outcomes (e.g., patient and graft survival, quality of life, patient-centered outcomes), and (4) identification of factors influencing organ donation decisions and the evaluation of interventions to increase rates of both living and deceased.
Overview of Research: The Berenson-Allen Center for Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation does clinical research in various modalities of brain stimulation for a variety of psychaitry and neurologic indications. For more inforation on the TMS lab at BIDMC, click here.
Overview of Research: Schizophrenia, Neuropsychology, Memory and Executive Function
Dr. Torous is a leader in the field of digital mental health, serving as the head of the APA work-group on evaluation of smartphone apps, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Internet Research-Mental Health, and the Director of the Division of Digital Health in the department of psychiatry at BIDMC. The intersection of technology and mental health offers the potential of new easily accessible diagnostic, monitoring, and even intervention tools. In this evolving ecosystem, the BIDMC Division of Digital Psychiatry offers a patient centric, evidence based, and open approach with the goal of enhancing care through collaborative, transparent, and rigorous clinical efforts. Research focuses include digital phenotyping, digital health literacy, smartphone app evaluation, relapse prediction, and college mental health. Residents are active members of our team, often leading key projects, developing new technologies, and sharing insights at national meetings. For more information on the department of digital psychiatry, click here.
Dr. Yen is the Director of the Clinical Psychology Training Program. Her research focuses on identifying risk factors and developing interactions for suicidal behaviors in adolescents and adults. As an investigator on prospective, longitudinal studies of youth with bipolar disorder, adults with personality disorders, and suicidal adolescents, Dr. yen has examined prospective predictors of suicidal behavior. She has also been the principal investigator of three adjunctive transdiagnostic interventions for suicidal adolescents. She is currently piloting an acceptance based intervention for youth with psychosis, a positive affect intervention for young adults outpatients, and a yoga intervention for depressed adolescents. She is also conducting research to examine mechanisms of suicide risk in sexual minority adolescents. Research opportunities include co-authoring manuscripts on one of the projects described above. Click here to learn more about Dr. Yen's research.
