Addiction and Substance Abuse
Understanding the biology underlying addiction is critical for a better understanding of how substance use disorders develop and persist. Our faculty take multidisciplinary, cutting-edge approaches to dissect the fundamental mechanisms and principles driving addictive behaviors under both physiological and pathological conditions
Aging
We seek to understand the biological, psychological, and social aspects of aging in order to develop strategies for promoting healthy aging and mitigating age-related decline. Our faculty applies sophisticated, multidisciplinary methodologies to explore the unique mechanisms that shape mental health challenges across the lifespan. By elucidating risk factors, molecular pathways, and sociocultural determinants of the aging process, our research contributes to pioneering advancements in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies for age-related decline.
Anxiety, Trauma, & Stress-Related Disorders
Anxiety, trauma, stress-related disorders are the most prevalent forms of mental illness worldwide. Research faculty in our department engage in basic and applied research related to anxiety, trauma, and stress-related disorders. Areas of interest include the effects of stress on brain maturation, function, and behavior, biomarkers of stress susceptibility and resilience, and formation of traumatic memory in healthy and pathological states. We are also working on establishing genetic and epigenetic markers of early-life trauma and associated psychopathology.
Basic Neurobiology
Understanding the biology underlying neuronal function and behavior is critical for a better understanding of various psychiatric disorders. Our faculty takes multidisciplinary, cutting-edge approaches to dissect the fundamental mechanisms and principles of neuronal function and behavior under physiological and pathological conditions.
Chronic Pain
Chronic pain affects millions of individuals worldwide, profoundly impacting quality of life, daily functioning, and mental health. Unlike acute pain, chronic pain persists beyond normal healing. It often coexists within the context of comorbid medical conditions or other conditions such as depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders, creating complex challenges for patients and healthcare providers. While pain is often an associated symptom in medical conditions like arthritis, diabetes, and neurological disorders, it can also exist as a primary diagnosis – such as fibromyalgia or complex regional pain syndrome – without an identifiable underlying cause. This underscores the importance of recognizing pain as a condition, not just a symptom. Understanding the underlying biological, psychological, and social mechanisms of chronic pain is essential for developing more effective, personalized treatments. Our research focuses on uncovering these mechanisms, identifying comorbid factors, and advancing novel, evidence-based interventions.
Depression & Suicide
Mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, represent a group of common and debilitating mental illnesses. While major depressive disorder is the most widespread mood disorder with an approximate lifetime prevalence of 20 percent, bipolar disorder is a severe form of mood disorder with an estimated prevalence of 2-4 percent. The World Health Organization has ranked depression and bipolar disorder among the most disabling conditions worldwide.
Functional Neurological Disorders
Within the Functional Neurological Disorders (FND) Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology at UAB, our faculty investigate the cognitive, behavioral, and neural mechanisms underlying functional symptoms. Through clinical trials, mechanistic studies, and digital health innovation, our team aims to identify targets for intervention and develop scalable, evidence-based treatments to improve outcomes for individuals with FND.
Implementation Science
Implementation science is the study of methods and strategies that promote the systematic uptake of evidence-based practices into routine healthcare and community settings to improve the quality, effectiveness, and equity of real-world services. Our faculty, in partnership with UAB’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science, use multi-disciplinary approaches to examine intervention adaptations, adoption strategies, and scaling techniques to ensure evidence-based practices are implemented quickly, thereby improving the quality of care and reducing the research-to-practice gap.
Novel Therapeutics & Interventions
Studying new therapies for central nervous system (CNS) disorders—including mental health conditions—is crucial for addressing the complexity and unmet needs of brain-related illnesses. One in four people will experience a mental disorder at some point in their lives. Although all mental disorders are biologically based, their underlying physiology is complex and varied, involving disruptions in neural connectivity, gene expression, neurotransmitter and hormonal levels, and immune responses, among other areas. With advances in genomics, neuroimaging, and drug delivery, we can now target disrupted neural pathways more precisely, offering hope for conditions like depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and bipolar disorder. These breakthroughs could shift the focus from merely managing symptoms to modifying the course of these diseases.
Obesity & Metabolic Disease
Understanding the biology underlying neuronal function and behavior is critical for a better understanding of various psychiatric disorders. Our faculty takes multidisciplinary, cutting-edge approaches to dissect the fundamental mechanisms and principles of neuronal function and behavior under physiological and pathological conditions.
Schizophrenia & Related Disorders
Within the Schizophrenia and Related Disorders research area in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology at UAB, our faculty investigates the molecular, cellular, and circuit-level disruptions that underlie psychotic illnesses. Using human postmortem tissue, multimodal neuroimaging, pharmacological modeling, and computational methods, our team’s aim to uncover novel mechanisms driving symptom emergence and cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia and related disorders.
Sleep & Circadian Regulation
Sleep is an important requirement for healthy brain function. The timing of sleep and numerous other hormones and physiological processes are regulated by a primary internal clock. Our faculty approaches sleep and circadian research with both basic neuroscience tools and in human subjects experiments to make novel discoveries about how the brain coordinates circadian rhythmicity throughout the body and maintains the right amount and type of sleep each night. Importantly, our research also focuses on how psychiatric, metabolic, and neurodegenerative diseases impact sleep and circadian rhythms, the impairment of which can exacerbate disease progression and symptoms.
Women's Mental Health
Understanding the intricate interplay between biological and psychosocial factors in women's mental health is an evolving and essential area of scientific inquiry. Certain psychiatric disorders disproportionately affect women, underscoring the urgent need for research that informs innovative solutions. Our faculty applies sophisticated, multidisciplinary methodologies to explore the unique mechanisms that shape mental health challenges across the female lifespan. By elucidating sex-specific risk factors, molecular pathways, and sociocultural determinants, our research contributes to pioneering advancements in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies.