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Innovations in Review 2025

Psychiatry

NewYork-Presbyterian’s behavioral health experts provide cutting-edge psychiatric care for a range of conditions and are committed to researching breakthrough treatment options that improve patient outcomes for a growing population of people living with mental health disorders. In 2025, clinicians and researchers from Columbia and Weill Cornell Medicine made significant advancements in identifying new therapeutic targets for anxiety, integrating care for ADHD and concurrent alcohol use disorder, developing AI-based tools to predict schizophrenia risk, and more. These developments are paving the way for advanced treatments and therapies that will benefit more patients.

Psychiatry
Psychiatry

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Read more about our top research and key innovations from 2025:

Proven Treatments Remain Underused In Schizophrenia Care

New Anxiety Treatment Pathway Could Eliminate Cognitive Side Effects

Addressing Concurrent ADHD In Alcohol Use Disorder

Endocannabinoids Reduce Opioid Reward Without Affecting Pain Relief

AI Model May Help Predict Onset Of Schizophrenia After Early Psychosis

Addictive Screen Use Linked To Suicidal Behavior In Adolescents

Exploring Psychedelics As The Next Wave Of Psychiatric Innovation

Proven Treatments Remain Underused In Schizophrenia Care

Antipsychotic medications and other approaches for treating schizophrenia have been shown to halt disease progression but are underutilized in the United States. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D., a psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia, is leading the call for better treatment modalities for patients that use proven strategies with disease-modifying benefits, including long-acting injectable antipsychotics and team-based multispecialty expertise. He identifies barriers that contribute to inadequate care, most notably the need for better education regarding these treatment options. Dr. Lieberman and his team have also developed steps that behavioral health specialists can take to ensure broader adoption of existing treatments that are capable of improving patient outcomes.

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Proven Treatments Remain Underused In Schizophrenia Care

New Anxiety Treatment Pathway Could Eliminate Cognitive Side Effects

Evidence exists that metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGluR2), a brain cell receptor, controls anxiety, but its mechanism of action is not well understood. A study coauthored by Conor Liston, M.D., Ph.D., a psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, and Weill Cornell Medicine biochemist Joshua Levitz, Ph.D., identified a new brain circuit — the insular cortex/basolateral amygdala projection — that expresses mGluR2, and activating it in this region was shown to reduce anxiety without causing cognitive impairments. This discovery indicates that the circuit warrants further investigation as a potential target for the treatment of anxiety and related disorders without the cognitive side effects typically associated with anxiety medications.

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New Anxiety Treatment Pathway Could Eliminate Cognitive Side Effects

Addressing Concurrent ADHD In Alcohol Use Disorder

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is frequently overlooked or minimized in individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD), but concurrent treatment of both conditions can enhance treatment retention and increase the chance of recovery. A review study coauthored by Frances Levin, M.D., an addiction psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia, provided guidance for how to manage both disorders, including therapies such as long-acting stimulants with lower abuse potential, nonstimulants, and psychosocial therapies. The study emphasized that clinicians should not eliminate ADHD medications altogether over fears of worsening addiction, as ADHD can increase the risk and severity of AUD, and instead encouraged them to develop optimal treatment plans that address both conditions.

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Addressing Concurrent ADHD In Alcohol Use Disorder

Endocannabinoids Reduce Opioid Reward Without Affecting Pain Relief

New research indicates that endocannabinoids, particularly 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG), may reduce the rewarding effects of opioids, challenging the theory that they exacerbate addictive behaviors. In a preclinical study, Francis Lee, M.D., Ph.D., psychiatrist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, along with researchers from The Center for Youth Mental Health at NewYork-Presbyterian, explored how endocannabinoids could help mitigate opioid addiction. The research uncovered that increasing 2-AG levels significantly diminished certain opioid reward behaviors and reduced dopamine transmission in the brain’s reward circuit. Notably, reduction occurred without compromising the analgesic effects of opioids, suggesting that future therapeutic approaches could harness endocannabinoids to lower addiction risk while effectively managing pain.

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Endocannabinoids Reduce Opioid Reward Without Affecting Pain Relief

AI Model May Help Predict Onset Of Schizophrenia After Early Psychosis

To address the challenge of diagnosing schizophrenia in its early stages, a team of Columbia researchers, including Steven A. Kushner, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry, and Shalmali Joshi, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biomedical informatics, developed a deep learning model designed to identify which patients with early psychosis are at high risk of developing schizophrenia. The model was trained on Medicaid data and revealed that the most predictive factors were not symptom reports but the ways patients used healthcare services, including how often a person sought care, in which settings, and the types of services used. These findings demonstrate the potential for a future tool that could assist clinicians in decision-making using data that can already be found in standard electronic health records.

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AI Model May Help Predict Onset Of Schizophrenia After Early Psychosis

Addictive Screen Use Linked To Suicidal Behavior In Adolescents

Recent years have seen a decline in youth mental health, leading to increased scrutiny of screen time as a risk factor. A study led by NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia psychiatrist J. John Mann, M.D., Ph.D., and Weill Cornell Medicine researcher Yunyu Xiao, Ph.D., revealed that patterns of addictive screen use are a more significant predictor of suicidal behaviors and ideation. The research also concluded that total screen time at baseline was not associated with any of the suicide-related or mental health outcomes measured. These findings could shift the paradigm and focus of negative mental health outcomes in adolescents from screen time alone to the signs of addiction.

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Addictive Screen Use Linked To Suicidal Behavior In Adolescents

Exploring Psychedelics As The Next Wave Of Psychiatric Innovation

Research on psychedelic drugs has revealed their potential as an alternative therapy for patients with treatment-resistant mood disorders. In a discussion on the Advances in Care podcast, Richard Friedman, M.D., a psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian and director of the Psychopharmacology Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine, and David J. Hellerstein, M.D., a research psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia, explored how the mechanisms of psychedelics differ from conventional antidepressants and examined the potential risks and benefits of using them to treat challenging mental health conditions. While there are obstacles researchers face to proving the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, the physicians’ analyses are helping guide a future path toward leveraging these drugs as a novel treatment for patients living with mood disorders.

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Exploring Psychedelics As The Next Wave Of Psychiatric Innovation