Dear Friends of the Psychiatric Research Institute, It has been one and a half years since I joined UAMS as PRI’s Director and Chair of the UAMS Department of Psychiatry. It is true that time flies – this time feels like it has flown by as I’ve learned more and more about the state of […]
News
Brain Imaging System Gives Researchers New Option
The origins of human mental health and illness lie in our early life when the brain is undergoing the programs and patterns of organization in structure and function that underlie these differing developmental outcomes. Magnetic resonance imaging, better known as MRI, has become the dominant brain imaging technology used in exploring the complex relationship between […]
Research Profile
An article written by a Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI) researcher is featured in each edition of “Mind Matters.” This article was written by Mollee Steely Smith, an assistant professor in PRI’s Health and the Legal System (HEALS) Lab. “An integrative literature review of substance use treatment service need and provision to pregnant and postpartum populations […]
Young Patients Explore Life Cycles Of Butterflies
There are roughly 750 species of butterfly in the United States. That fact may come as a surprise to most people, but probably not to the young patients on the Child Diagnostic Unit (CDU) in the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI). The young children on the inpatient unit spent four weeks in March learning a […]
Four Join PRI In Leadership Roles
The Psychiatric Research Institute’s leadership has seen four new additions in recent months. Jason Williams, Psy.D., M.S.Ed., came aboard on Jan. 1 as the new Division Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He also serves as Senior Vice President and Chief […]
Smart Phone App Hopes To Reduce Opioid Cravings
A smart phone application designed by three Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI) researchers to decrease opioid cravings and optimize medication-assisted treatment among individuals with opioid use disorder is drawing national attention. A prototype of the app, known as OptiMAT (Optimizing Medication Assisted Treatment), was one of five winning entries in the 2022 National Institute on Drug […]
Researchers Forming Alliance to Help Women Who Have Been Incarcerated
A team of University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) researchers recently received an award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to help launch an alliance of Arkansas organizations that provide services to women who have been incarcerated. According to research, justice-involved women commonly suffer from chronic physical and mental health conditions that are […]
Dunn Receives Marie Wilson Howells Endowed Chair In Psychiatry
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ College of Medicine invested Laura B. Dunn, M.D., in the Marie Wilson Howells Chair in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences during a ceremony held April 20 at the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute on campus. Dunn, who joined the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in […]
Patient Turns To Surgery To Relieve OCD
Thomasine Williams of Sherwood was constantly washing her hands and arranging and rearranging items. She was unable to go anywhere in public without taking a towel to sit on. She balked at opening doors and using silverware at restaurants. A mother of two, she first noticed her obsession with cleanliness when her children were young. […]
Adolescent Girls Needed For Research Study
A team of UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute researchers is recruiting girls ages 11-17 for a study of how child abuse can change brain function and increase the likelihood of adults developing mental health disorders. The study, at the Brain Imaging Research Center, is hoping to uncover the effects early life trauma can have on the […]