Paul Newhouse, MD
Dr. Newhouse holds the Jim Turner Chair of Cognitive Disorders at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and is Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology, and Medicine. He is Director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center that focuses on studies of the cognitive basis of neuropsychiatric disease and Training Director for the Vanderbilt TVHS Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship. He is also a physician scientist at the VA Tennessee Valley Health Systems Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC).
Dr. Newhouse received his undergraduate education at Kansas State University, attended medical school at Loyola University, Stritch School of Medicine, and completed his residency training in psychiatry at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He completed a fellowship in Geriatric Psychopharmacology Research at the National Institute of Mental Health. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in both General Psychiatry and Geriatric Psychiatry and in 2002 was awarded the American Psychiatric Association Profiles in Courage Award.
Dr. Newhouse’s research has focused on central nicotinic mechanisms in aging and the role of nicotinic receptor systems in normal and disordered cognitive functioning in humans. He has also emphasized the development of novel cholinergic agents for clinical use in cognitive disorders. A second major focus includes studying the interaction of estrogen and related molecules on central cholinergic systems in relation to cognitive and emotional aging through the use of novel pharmacologic-imaging methodologies. Current studies in his laboratory include the effects of nicotinic treatment for mild cognitive impairment and post cancer chemotherapy cognitive impairment, cholinergic mechanisms on multisensory integration in aging, the effects of nicotinic stimulation in older adults with Down syndrome, and the effects of estrogen receptor stimulation on cholinergic mediated cognitive performance in older women. He has funding from NIA, NCI, and private foundations.
Dr. Newhouse serves as a frequent consultant to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the United States and abroad on central nervous system drug development, clinical trial design for dementia and depression, and clinical nicotinic pharmacology.