Neuroimaging and psychotherapy research

[Psychology 76]

I know this is a new topic but does anyone happen to know labs that focus on implementing neuroimaging into psychotherapy? I know Harvard Medical School does a little but are there any PhD programs that do as well? I've been searching for awhile and haven't found much as anything.

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[Psy01]

http://suffolk.edu/college/13130.html

 

[Psychology 76]

http://suffolk.edu/college/13130.html

awesome, thank you!!

 

[ygolohcysp]

Also, http://www.mrn.org/principal-investigators/sarah-w-feldstein-ewing-ph-d and http://www.mrn.org/principal-investigators/kent-hutchison-ph-d investigate this a ton!

 

[deadmau5]

yeah this is a really big interest of mine. really interested in the neurobiological impact of CBT and such. more specifically the mechanisms of actions... like molecularly. i want to know how CBT affects ion channels. evidence i have found says a general yes... but we don't know how/which ones.

 

[Psychology 76]

Also, http://www.mrn.org/principal-investigators/sarah-w-feldstein-ewing-ph-d and http://www.mrn.org/principal-investigators/kent-hutchison-ph-d investigate this a ton!

That's awesome thank you! I want to work there someday

yeah this is a really big interest of mine. really interested in the neurobiological impact of CBT and such. more specifically the mechanisms of actions... like molecularly. i want to know how CBT affects ion channels. evidence i have found says a general yes... but we don't know how/which ones.

That sounds like fascinating research!






Do you guys think neuroimaging will ever be a major theme in psychotherapy? Or at least seriously considered?
I think if it is and we can show hard evidence that psychotherapy works it would 'save' clinical psychology.

 

[teo3099]

.

 

[deadmau5]

^ The funny thing is too... some of the time both drugs and therapy seems to have the same actions. For example, OCD... there was an early study that found the same changes with CBT and meds.

 

[Psychology 76]

^ The funny thing is too... some of the time both drugs and therapy seems to have the same actions. For example, OCD... there was an early study that found the same changes with CBT and meds.

I read about that study in one of Jeffrey Schwartz' books
I just think that neuroimaging could be huge for clinical psych because of that very reason. I just worry that psychiatrists will take over this technique and then psychologists won't have anything.

 

[Ollie123]

Can you elaborate more on what you are looking for, actually? I might have some recommendations, but am a bit confused what you are looking for.
Originally I thought you were looking for people who were actually using fMRI as a clinical tool in therapy - which is very rare and super-experimental right now given that the technology/analytic techniques/reliability/etc. just aren't quite there enough for it to be useful clinically. Your statement about psychiatrists "taking over" this technique made me think this is what you were referring to.

The links you were sent are folks using fMRI to study neural mechanisms of psychotherapy or the sake of developing better therapies (and other purposes), which is a step in that direction, but still quite far from using it for actual day-to-day clinical purposes (i.e. patient comes in, gets scanned to see what therapy would work best for them, etc.). The reality is that it is going to be very hard to find this because frankly, the research really isn't there yet. Your concern about it becoming the domain of psychiatrists just struck me as odd since I'm not sure how a research tool can fall under the domain of one profession or another - which made me think you were looking at it as a clinical tool - but then the resources you were being referred to didn't really fall into that group.

If you are looking to do fMRI research, there are tons and tons and tons of clinical psychologists who do it. Not all look at it in the context of therapy, but I suspect many would be perfectly open to the idea even if they haven't done it in the past. If you are looking for people who are truly integrating it into clinical practice already rather than using it for research purposes, I suspect you will be sorely disappointed.

 

[Psychology 76]

Can you elaborate more on what you are looking for, actually? I might have some recommendations, but am a bit confused what you are looking for.
Originally I thought you were looking for people who were actually using fMRI as a clinical tool in therapy - which is very rare and super-experimental right now given that the technology/analytic techniques/reliability/etc. just aren't quite there enough for it to be useful clinically. Your statement about psychiatrists "taking over" this technique made me think this is what you were referring to.

The links you were sent are folks using fMRI to study neural mechanisms of psychotherapy or the sake of developing better therapies (and other purposes), which is a step in that direction, but still quite far from using it for actual day-to-day clinical purposes (i.e. patient comes in, gets scanned to see what therapy would work best for them, etc.). The reality is that it is going to be very hard to find this because frankly, the research really isn't there yet. Your concern about it becoming the domain of psychiatrists just struck me as odd since I'm not sure how a research tool can fall under the domain of one profession or another - which made me think you were looking at it as a clinical tool - but then the resources you were being referred to didn't really fall into that group.

If you are looking to do fMRI research, there are tons and tons and tons of clinical psychologists who do it. Not all look at it in the context of therapy, but I suspect many would be perfectly open to the idea even if they haven't done it in the past. If you are looking for people who are truly integrating it into clinical practice already rather than using it for research purposes, I suspect you will be sorely disappointed.

Sure, I understand how my last comment was unclear. I brought up psychiatrists because deadmau5 mentioned the OCD study where researcher's found medicine and therapy affecting the brain in similar ways via neuroimaging. So I was just thinking uh oh what if down the road when neuroimaging is used in clinical practices, psychiatrists can see if therapy and/or medicine works but psychologists cannot. Thus, it MIGHT become more medically oriented as psychiatrists can play with medicine and therapy to get healthy fMRI results. I was just merely speculating; I know neuroimaging isn't common in clinics

This guy actually has very similar research interests to mine, so I'm looking for more researchers like him.
http://suffolk.edu/college/13130.html
(thanks again Psy01!)

I just think using neuroimaging techniques for any complex cognitive process is fascinating. Psychotherapy would be interesting to investigate via neuroimaging because someday it could be used clinically.

 

[Psychology 76]

If you are looking to do fMRI research, there are tons and tons and tons of clinical psychologists who do it. Not all look at it in the context of therapy, but I suspect many would be perfectly open to the idea even if they haven't done it in the past.

I've been searching for professors who do neuroimaging research that are faculty at clinical psychology programs for months now and I have found very little. Its frustrating because I want to go into clinical psychology but I have such a strong interest in neuroimaging research.

I'm just going through schools who offer a clinical psychology degree (I have the graduate study in psychology book and i've been going through websites) but it seems like clinical faculty who do neuroimaging research are few and far between. I know they have to be more prevalent, but from what I've seen so far it doesn't appear they are

 

[VeggieDelight]

I've been searching for professors who do neuroimaging research that are faculty at clinical psychology programs for months now and I have found very little. Its frustrating because I want to go into clinical psychology but I have such a strong interest in neuroimaging research.

I'm just going through schools who offer a clinical psychology degree (I have the graduate study in psychology book and i've been going through websites) but it seems like clinical faculty who do neuroimaging research are few and far between. I know they have to be more prevalent, but from what I've seen so far it doesn't appear they are

Which schools did you look at? Not all the (US News-defined) top programs have these researchers, but plenty of others do. To start, check all the big neuropsych schools- all of them have clinical faculty doing imaging research. And at several more generalist clinical programs, you will find faculty involved in imaging (some identify as neuropsychologists and some as clinical/cognitive neuroscientists who are also clinical psychologists). Keep digging!

 

[stigmata]

The problem is you can't image an ion channel, GPCR or anything even close to where the research is showing things are happening on a cellular and sub-cellular level. This will be the major limitation of such research.

 

[Psychology 76]

Which schools did you look at? Not all the (US News-defined) top programs have these researchers, but plenty of others do. To start, check all the big neuropsych schools- all of them have clinical faculty doing imaging research. And at several more generalist clinical programs, you will find faculty involved in imaging (some identify as neuropsychologists and some as clinical/cognitive neuroscientists who are also clinical psychologists). Keep digging!

I've went through the list of neuropsych schools on the div40 website and in my psychology graduate program book and only about 25% of the schools listed have faculty doing neuroimaging work.

Is it bad that the only research I find interesting is that involving some neuroscience/neuroimaging component?

 

[Psychology 76]

The problem is you can't image an ion channel, GPCR or anything even close to where the research is showing things are happening on a cellular and sub-cellular level. This will be the major limitation of such research.

Yes, but you can research systems and pathways via human neuroimaging techniques. I know there are limitations but I think the field is so promising despite them

 

[VeggieDelight]

I've went through the list of neuropsych schools on the div40 website and in my psychology graduate program book and only about 25% of the schools listed have faculty doing neuroimaging work.

Is it bad that the only research I find interesting is that involving some neuroscience/neuroimaging component?

No, of course it is not bad. I just started in a clinical program and in a neuroimaging lab, so I get what you're looking for. Imaging work was also important to me while looking at graduate programs. The good news is that SO many people are now incorporating some imaging component in their work through collaborations. I researched a good deal of programs with these researchers on faculty, so if you have questions about specific schools or research interests, feel free to PM me.

 

[Zigman]

There are certain philosophical pitfalls this path has (I worry about misuse from unscrupulous practitioners, misinterpretation of results from those untrained in neuropsych, treating behaviors as hardwired, unchangeable brain states), but I think it's integral to the profession.

I think this is right on the money.

It would seem to me that much of this research would be predicated on beliefs such as "depression constitutes a disease process." However, my take on the literature is that this notion is primarily marketed by those who stand to make a profit from treating this "disease" through the use of drugs. Sure, there might be a very small subset of people who truly suffer from chronic depressed mood due to identifiable pathophysiology (which would itself likely be quite variable from individual to individual). But what we are being sold is that ALL do. I don't see much research to support this. I mean, has anyone seen the several recent meta-analyses that show anti-depressants to essentially be useless in all but the very most severe cases?

If what we are looking for in imaging/psychotherapy outcome research is universal "disease" processes that can be altered via some particular way of doing therapy, I doubt we'll find it...though some will claim that they have. In fact, every day free-standing neuroimaging clinics are bilking people out of thousands of dollars telling them that their MRI indicates "depression." As noted above, current science doesn't allow us to draw that conclusion.

Our brains are changing on a moment-by-moment basis constantly as we interact with the environment. Behaviors are repeated, and through principles of reinforcement/punishment, certain circuits become more resistant to modification. But, as noted above, they are modifiable. So, of course psychotherapy alters neurobiology. However, individual variability (in life history, genetic inheritance, epigenetic factors, etc.), I believe, is likely to preclude finding some "universal" way of treating "depression."
I think neuroimaging is invaluable for many functions, however, I'm not sure if this will be one of them.

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but what do others think??

 

[deadmau5]

i agree there's thousands of variables in treatment studies to consider... and true, the same pathology may not be the same for all, but I feel like this emerging field could help shed light on refining neuro models for psychological disorders.

e.g. why don't all anti-depressants work? maybe we're not targeting something else that needs to be looked at... that's where the ion channels come in again. what else could we potentially use to treat those not treated with standard SSRIs.