research ideas

[marshmallows]

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I was wondering any pgy 3 and 4s or recent grads advice on how you got your research ideas. I have to do required research elective that I have been putting off. I guess I need to brainstorm. 😱

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I was wondering any pgy 3 and 4s or recent grads advice on how you got your research ideas. I have to do required research elective that I have been putting off. I guess I need to brainstorm. 😱

😕

How about "Incorporating evidence-based anecdotes and other oxymorons into your practice"? 🙄

But seriously--look at your faculty--there must be someone doing something that inherently interests you. Talk with them, propose a question that they are willing to mentor you in.

 

[Chimed]

Agree. Your best option is to find a researcher and either do a side project on something they are doing or let them help you come up with a doable, small project. I came up with all kinds of cool ideas for research projects, but having a good idea and something that is realist and feasible are not always the same.

 

[whopper]

I can think of plenty of research ideas, but when I face the reality of the hard work involved to get them done, wow, I just stick to clinical work. Not that I don't ever want to do it, but having a kid just put a lid on this at least for the next few years.

Some ideas: do a CATIE style study using the same conditions on the new atypicals that came out after CATIE, e.g. Fanapt, Latuda, Saphris.

SSRIs, do they prevent dementia? After all they cause release of BDNF.

EPA, one of the omega 3s, does it prevent dementia?

NRIs are supposed to reduce pain. Cymbalta and Effexor do that. Does Strattera do it? Does Effexor or Cymbalta benefit ADHD?

Several of my Suboxone patients have ADHD. Get a few hundred Suboxone patients, test them for ADHD using non-self-report scales such as the TOVA. This could lead to ADHD testing for all Suboxone patients.

SAM-E, plenty of studies show it benefits depression. Does it benefit OCD? Anxiety? How? Why?

Several theorize that circadian rhythms are screwed in bipolar disorder. Does light therapy and melatonin treatment have a place here?

Cannabinoids, any place here for psychiatric treatment of anxiety?

I came up with all kinds of cool ideas for research projects, but having a good idea and something that is realist and feasible are not always the same.

Yep. I would love it for someone to do another CATIE with the newer atypicals. That'd only take a heck of a lot of money, multicenter trials, and a lot of time.

 

[nitemagi]

I did research during residency, but ultimately left it behind because I didn't want to spend my career chasing grants. The whole process, including getting published, is really really political. Don't show them how the sausage is made.

Research ideas I think are like any idea. Ask questions and look for niches or opportunities no one has explored before. Draw clinical inferences. A is similar to B. B works on C. Would A work on C?

Strattera is a NERI, and some antidepressants have some NERI properties, so might Strattera work as an antidepressant?

I like Whopper's BDNF dementia idea.

Anytime you look something up and can't find a definitive answer in a textbook or journal article, that's a research opportunity. The trick then is figuring out how to study it in a way that doesn't take millions of dollars or 20 years.

Another trick is to figure out what you're doing clinically, and turn it into a way to gather data. Working in an ER? Add a self-report measure of anxiety complaints, or somatic complaints, or whatever. Then do a data mining/chart review to see if that maps to anything else (CC, labs, # of ER visits, meds prescribed, admitted or not).

 

[Bartelby]

😕
But seriously--look at your faculty--there must be someone doing something that inherently interests you. Talk with them, propose a question that they are willing to mentor you in.

This is all the advice you need. It is way easier and way more productive to join a group and find a piece of what they are working on that you can explore than it is to try to build a study, the funding, and the infrastructure from the ground up. Just start emailing or stopping by to talk with some researchers.

 

[whopper]

so might Strattera work as an antidepressant?

No.

The company that made Strattera tried to make it a non-SSRI antidepressant with a market angle of no sexual side effects. It produced no benefit in trials for depression despite the reasoning that norepinephrine is supposed to be involved in depression. The company was able to salvage the med for profit upon discovering it had ADHD benefit.

But since norepi is supposed to be involved in depression, I sometimes wonder if it could have a benefit as an antidepressant augmentation agent, and if it could have benefits in anxiety.

 

[whopper]

But seriously--look at your faculty--there must be someone doing something that inherently interests you.

I've done research as well, pumping ACE-inhibitors into rat brains put on a diet that would've made them stroke to see if it prevented strokes. ACE-inhibitors in the kidneys prevent vasoconstriction. The reasoning was there are ACE receptors in the brain serving an unknown function. Perhaps it would've reduced strokes.

It didn't as far as I could tell. Later data came out suggesting those receptors could be involved in migraines but I never found out if later work came out of it.

It was very tedious work, I didn't like the grant aspect, and after thousands of hours of hard work the results were not significant so no one would publish it despite the argument that declaring the results were not significant could at least steer people away from researching it further and save them time and money.

If you have a passion for what you're researching, it will take away the tedium. It could actually make it quite invigorating.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

No.

The company that made Strattera tried to make it a non-SSRI antidepressant with a market angle of no sexual side effects. It produced no benefit in trials for depression despite the reasoning that norepinephrine is supposed to be involved in depression. The company was able to salvage the med for profit upon discovering it had ADHD benefit.

But since norepi is supposed to be involved in depression, I sometimes wonder if it could have a benefit as an antidepressant augmentation agent, and if it could have benefits in anxiety.

That, plus Lilly had their vaunted SNRI antidepressant coming on the market at the same time, and were, shall we say, unmotivated to compete with themselves for scarce NE transporters... 🙄