Latest Research News

A new review published in Substance Use & Addiction Journal examines how eight countries regulate access to methadone and buprenorphine, the most effective medications for opioid use disorder. Yale authors include Julio Nunes, MD; Gabriel P.A. Costa, MD; and Joao De Aquino, MD.

The last half of the 20th century saw a sea change in our capacity to fight disease and improve health. The bedrock for this development was the consistent support for biomedical research, and the nation has benefited from scientific discoveries that have been translated into treatments for previously untreatable conditions. Since our inception in 1998, Women’s Health Research at Yale (WHRY) has initiated and supported such research on health conditions that directly affect communities all over the country. In particular, we have focused on advancing our understanding of women’s health and on sex differences in health and disease that inform our understanding and treatment of disorders in women and men.

Wearable sensors such as smartwatches that collect physical and physiological data may be powerful tools in the effort to better understand brain and behavioral illnesses and their genetic drivers, according to a new Yale study published in Cell. Co-authors include, from left, Walter Roberts, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry; Terril Verplaetse, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry; and Matthew Girgenti, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry.

Frances J. Griffith, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, and Lisa Fucito, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry are first and senior authors, respectively, of a paper in Nature Digital Medicine that describes a user experience analysis, including natural language processing, from a digital intervention for reducing alcohol risk and improving sleep health in young adults.

First author Patrick Worhunsky, DPhil, assistant professor adjunct of psychiatry, and senior authors Marc Potenza, MD, PhD, Steven M. Southwick Professor of Psychiatry and Professor in the Child Study Center and of Neuroscience, and Gustavo A. Angarita, MD, MHS, assistant professor of psychiatry led a research team that examined vitamin D's ability to target dopamine release. The results were published in Biological Psychiatry.

A digital cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program was more effective than clinician-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy in increasing alcohol abstinence in patients over an 8-month study period, according to a new Yale study. Brian D. Kiluk, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry, is lead author of the study, published in JAMA Network Open.

Investigators in the Yale Department of Psychiatry investigated the genetic profiles of more than 1 million participants enrolled in multiple cohorts around the world. Leveraging this large dataset, they uncovered more than 100 genes associated with anxiety. Eleni Friligkou, MD, MSc, and Renato Polimanti, PhD, MSc, are first and senior authors, respectively.

A new study, led by researchers at Yale School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, utilized positron emission tomography imaging with [11C]PBR28, a radiotracer to measure 18-kDa translocator protein to better understand microglia, the resident immune cells in the brain of individuals with PTSD.

Bao-Zhu Yang, PhD, research scientist in psychiatry, has been awarded a grant by the National Institute on Drug Abuse for a study related to drug use and HIV.