Resident Research Project

As part of our commitment to educating all residents in the links between emerging research finds and clinical practice, each resident will choose a research project that will be developed over the course of training. There are many possible projects and mentors to choose from including areas of basic research, clinical outcome research, and epidemiology. Residents will choose a mentor and work with him/her over a period of time to develop a project that is most consonant with each individual's preferences and learning needs. Much of the time devoted to these research projects will take place during the third and fourth years of training. Each year there will be a Resident Research Day with poster presentations of the projects completed over the course of the year. These projects will greatly enhance the education of anyone planning a career in clinical psychiatry and will also be an important step for those wishing to pursue academic careers.

Research at the Frontiers of Psychiatry

Research in psychiatry is necessarily interdisciplinary, grounded in a concern about the prevention and treatment of serious mental illness. Over the next generation our perspective will be substantially informed by research findings from a number of disciplines in the biological, behavioral, and social sciences. Perspectives from epidemiology, human population genetics, and clinical investigation will help shape the questions that can be clarified through research in molecular biology, molecular genetics, and the neurobiology of cognition, behavior, and affect. The challenge to academic psychiatry into the 21st century will be to harness the growing body of knowledge and technology to high quality and empathic clinical services. The pace of research in the past decade dwarfs anything that came before; much of what we now know about the neurobiological basis of mental disorders we have learned in the last ten years. During the same period the epidemiological studies (supported by the National Institute of Mental Health) have substantially altered older perceptions on the prevalence, distribution, and treatment of major mental illness.

The academic leadership at our consortium of teaching hospitals has been able to commit broad and diverse support to research relevant to psychiatry. For 2004-2005, the annual extramural research support budget for the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Connecticut Health Center exceeded $10,000,000 (per year). On a faculty per capita basis, this remains the second highest rate of extramural research support for all departments in the School of Medicine. In addition to federal support of individual research projects, the department is the recipient of a major national alcohol research center grant from the National Institute of Health. Faculty in the department also participate in the activities of three other NIH-supported research centers at the School of Medicine, including the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC). There is also excellent collaboration with faculty members of the new Department of Neurosciences and the many pre- and post-doctoral training programs of the Health Center.

The following programs of research are identified as separate laboratories. These laboratories provide opportunities for research and training in the areas of clinical diagnosis, psychiatric epidemiology, psychopharmacology, behavioral genetics, neurobiology, clinical trials, and outcomes research. There is a high degree of collaboration among laboratories in our programs and the entire research program is strongly supportive of young investigators. Residents interested in a research career have participated as early as their PG I year in a program of research that continued throughout their training. Opportunities are available to devote nearly full time to research in the final year of training. Post-doctoral research training stipends for basic and/or clinical research in the addictions are available through the Alcohol Research Center. Fellowships in neuropsychopharmacology are available through the Department of Psychiatry.

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT - BASIC, CLINICAL SERVICES AND RESEARCH AREAS

Clinical Psychopharmacology Laboratory

Henry Kranzler, M.D.

Andrew Winokur, M.D., Ph.D.

Laboratory of Health Psychology

Co-Directors:

Howard Tennen, Ph.D.

Laboratory of Genetic Studies in Schizophrenia

Jonathan Covault, M.D., Ph.D.

Laboratory of Population Genetics

Director: Victor Hesselbrock, Ph.D.

Neural Dynamics and Psychophysiology Laboratory

Director: Lance Bauer, Ph.D.

Victor Hesselbrock, Ph.D.

Alcohol Research Center

Director, Victor Hesselbrock, Ph.D

Neuropsychology Laboratory

Director: Richard Kaplan, Ph.D.

Wallace Deckel, Ph.D.

Epidemiology/Health Services Research

Director: Thomas Babor, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Laboratory for Psychotherapy Outcome Studies

Ronald Kadden, Ph.D.

Mark Litt, Ph.D.

Ned Cooney, Ph.D.

Judith Cooney, Ph.D.

Julian Ford, Ph.D.

Neuropsychopharmacology Treatment, Research and Training Center

Andrew Winokur, M.D., Ph.D.

Leighton Huey, M.D.

Jayesh Kamuth M.D., Ph.D.

Julian Ford, Ph.D.

Center for the Study of High Utilizers of Health Care Services

Robert Trestman, Ph.D., M.D.

Julian Ford, Ph.D.

Laboratory of Functional Imaging

John Vento M.D.

Public Sector Initiatives

Leighton Huey, M.D.

Robert Trestman, Ph.D., M.D.

Robert Cole, Ph.D.

Ted Lawlor, M.D.

Julian Ford, Ph.D.