Innovations in Review 2024

Psychiatry

In 2024, our behavioral health experts advanced psychiatric care by incorporating novel technologies and new perspectives to expand treatment options and access to care. Novel research from clinicians at Columbia and Weill Cornell Medicine on depression, eating disorders, serious mental illness, post‑traumatic stress disorder, and addiction helped improve quality of life for all patients living with mental health conditions.

Psychiatry
Psychiatry

Interventional Neurotherapeutic Psychiatry Holds Promise for TRD

Millions of Americans live with major depressive disorder, but a subset of them do not respond to treatment. NewYork‑Presbyterian and Columbia psychiatrists Adrian Jacques Ambrose, MD, MPH, MBA, FAPA, and Joshua Berman, MD, PhD, co-direct the Interventional Neurotherapeutic Psychiatry Program, where they apply the latest therapeutic approaches, including transcranial magnetic stimulation, electroconvulsive therapy, intravenous ketamine, and intranasal esketamine, to help manage patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Through this unique program, the clinicians assess each patient and develop an individualized plan based on their priorities, risk factors, and treatment history.

Interventional Neurotherapeutic Psychiatry Holds Promise for TRD

Recognizing Income-Based Barriers to Eating Disorder Treatment

Eating disorders impact patients across race, ethnicity, gender, and income. However, patients with low income are particularly vulnerable to barriers to evidence-based care, as they face more obstacles such as a lack of trained providers and the high cost of treatment. Last year, Suzanne Bailey-Straebler, PhD, PMH-BC, clinical director of the Center for Eating Disorders Partial Hospital Program and Specialty Outpatient Clinic at NewYork‑Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, published a paper identifying these barriers to treatment and offering strategies to reduce them. This includes validating screening tools, training therapists on costeffective online options, assuring patients have access to nutritious foods, and providing treatment in preferred languages.

Recognizing Income-Based Barriers to Eating Disorder Treatment

New Training Guidelines Address Treatment Gap in SMI

After serving on the Training and Evaluation Committee of the Specialty Council for SMI Psychology, Lauren Gonzales, PhD, a clinical psychologist at NewYork‑Presbyterian and Columbia, co-authored a summary of new guidelines for serious mental illness (SMI) to educate psychology professionals. Historically, the exact list of which diagnoses fall under the SMI umbrella is not widely agreed upon and psychologists receive relatively little training on SMI. The new guidelines provide structured information on evidence-based treatments, systems of care, sociocultural structures, and cultural humility. With a focus on recovery-oriented, person-centered treatment, these guidelines position the small but growing field to expand to meet demand for SMI care.

New Training Guidelines Address Treatment Gap in SMI

Advancing Personalized PTSD Treatment with VR Exposure Therapy

Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRE) can be particularly effective in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid major depressive disorder. JoAnn Difede, PhD, director of the Program for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Studies and director of the Virtual Reality Lab at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, is expanding use of VRE by combining it with D-cycloserine (DCS), a cognitive enhancing medication, to explore personalized approaches to PTSD treatment. Recent research from Dr. Difede and her team indicated that people who carry Val66Met polymorphism are more likely to respond favorably to VRE in conjunction with DCS. While her work was once rooted in the aftermath of 9/11, Dr. Difede is expanding VRE to help healthcare professionals cope with trauma and moral injury from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Images from VRE of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Confronting Substance Use & Addiction at APA Annual Meeting

Dozens of NewYork‑Presbyterian clinicians attended and presented at the 2024 American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual meeting, sharing views and research to help guide a better course for psychiatric care. Focused on “Confronting Addiction from Prevention to Recovery,” research from Columbia and Weill Cornell Medicine highlighted a range of clinical topics. This included motivational enhancement therapy protocol for cannabis cessation; opioids in medically complex patients; and how to address sexual violence in inpatient psychiatric units.

Confronting Substance Use & Addiction at APA Annual Meeting

The Network Effect: Analyzing Brain Structures to Treat Depression

On the Advances in Care podcast, Conor Liston, MD, PhD, a psychiatrist at NewYork‑Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, shares how understanding depressed brain structures could hold the key to effectively using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to tackle treatment-resistant depression. His work with brain-mapping and findings on how certain brain networks expand into other areas when depressed is paving the way for future treatments and ultimately a better understanding of what causes depression symptoms.

A Promising New Treatment Protocol in Anorexia Nervosa