Patricia S. Andrews, MD

Patricia
Serrano
Andrews
MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Program Director
Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship
Director, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry
Associate Director of Alzheimer's Disease Clinical Trials
Center for Cognitive Medicine
Division of Geriatric Psychiatry
patricia.andrews@vumc.org

Dr. Andrews joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2019 after completing her Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She is also a former Honors Scholar of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation and board-certified psychiatrist from Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia.

Dr. Andrews is a 2023 Scholar, which is a grant awarded by the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) to study how prior COVID-19 infection may accelerate cognitive decline in the ADNI cohort. She is Site Co-Principal Investigator for the Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC) since Vanderbilt became an ACTC site in 2023. Dr. Andrews is the Site-Principal Investigator of the AHEAD Study, an NIA funded study of Lecanemab, a recently approved FDA treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. Additionally, she is co-investigator in multiple NIH funded projects on cognitive impairment, geriatric depression, and dementia.

Alexander Conley, PhD

Alexander
Christian
Conley
PhD
Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital
1601 23rd Avenue South
Nashville
Tennessee
37212

Dr. Conley's research involves the investigation of novel cognitive and neuroimaging markers of cognitive decline. This investigation looks both at examining the impact of novel interventions on cognitive function in clinical samples, and also to identify markers of future risk or protection from cognitive decline in healthy older adults.

alexander.c.conley@vumc.org

Dr Conley joined Vanderbilt in November 2016 after completing his PhD in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Newcastle, Australia. He also holds a BPsyc (Hons) from the University of Newcastle. Alex’s scientific interests lie in the study of how new medicines may help reverse the cognitive and memory problems that develop following trauma and neurodegeneration.

Kimberly Albert, PhD

Kimberly
Albert
PhD
Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital
1601 23rd Avenue South
Nashville
Tennessee
37212
kimberly.albert@vumc.org

Dr. Albert's research focuses on the interface of cognition and emotion and examining cognitive processes that contribute to mood disorders risk and pathological cognitive aging. She completed a BS in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and received her PhD in neuroscience working with Dr. Paul Newhouse in the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit at the University of Vermont. Dr. Albert completed post-doctoral training at the Center for Cognitive Medicine and Vanderbilt University with Dr. Warren Taylor, and currently has an appointment as a research instructor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.    

Research Description

Dr. Albert's research focuses on the systems and behavioral neuroscience of early cognitive changes in pathological cognitive aging. Her work includes neuroimaging and remote, ecological assessment of subjective and objective cognitive function to better understand early brain network changes in Alzheimer's Disease, develop markers of risk, and target novel interventions to support cognitive maintenance in aging.    

Pain Perception in Patients with Alzheimer’s and Cancer

October 10, 2019
https://discover.vumc.org/2019/10/pain-perception-in-patients-with-alzheimers-and-cancer/
Ronald Cowan, M.D.
Are older adults with cancer and Alzheimer’s more sensitive to pain? Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and The Ohio State University have been awarded a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Aging to study the impact of cancer and co-occurring Alzheimer’s disease on pain perception.

Billings interviews Christopher Watson during inaugural statewide Association of Infant Mental Health in Tennessee conference

September 20, 2019
Giovanni Billings, Psy.D., IMH-E®, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, hosted and interviewed Christopher Watson, Ph.D., IMH-E® (IV) Co-Director of the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED) at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for the Inaugural statewide conference for the Association of Infant Mental Health in Tennessee (AIMHiTN). The conference focused on "Nurturing a Culture of Relationship & Reflection in Practice and Programs" for systems serving infant care at the Scarritt Bennett Center.

GRED: October 16, 2019

This week's article for discussion is: (This is meant to precede the talk by Dr. Lewis on Friday October 18) "The Ventral Hippocampus Controls Stress-Provoked Impulsive Aggression through the Ventromedial Hypothalamus in Post-Weaning Social Isolation Mice" by Chih-Hua Chang, Po-Wu Gean

GRED: September 25, 2019

This week's article for discussion is: "Functional specificity in the Human Brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind" by Nancy Kanwisher

GRED: Sept. 11, 2019

This week's article for discussion is: "Development of multisensory integration from the perspective of the individual neuron" by Barry E. Stein, Terrence R. Stanford and Benjamin A. Rowland

Stephan Heckers, MD, MSc

Stephan
Heckers
MD, MSc
William P. and Henry B. Test Professor & Department Chair

Dr. Stephan Heckers joined the Vanderbilt Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in 2006 as Department Chair. He is a member of several editorial boards and the Scientific Council of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (formerly NARSAD). For further details, see the Curriculum Vitae below.

Dr. Heckers is an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and bipolar disorder. He takes care of patients, who experience acute psychotic episodes, at Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital and leads a multi-disciplinary specialty clinic for patients with psychotic disorders.

For the last 30 years, Dr. Heckers has studied the neural basis of psychotic disorders. He has combined anatomical and functional methods, ranging from post-mortem studies of hippocampal neuron number and gene expression to imaging studies of hippocampal structure and function. In the context of these studies he has applied existing and developed novel experimental paradigms to explore hippocampal function in patients with psychotic disorders. He is now conducting longitudinal studies investigating changes in hippocampal structure and function in the early stage of psychosis.

For more information, click here.

Selected Publications

  1. Heckers S, Heinsen H, Geiger B, Beckmann H. Hippocampal neuron number in schizophrenia. A stereological study. Archives of General Psychiatry 1991; 48: 1002-8.
  2. Heckers S, Rauch SL, Goff D, Savage CR, Schacter DL, Fischman AJ, Alpert NM. Impaired recruitment of the hippocampus during conscious recollection in schizophrenia. Nature Neuroscience 1998; 1: 318-323.
  3. Heckers S, Stone D, Walsh J, Shick J, Koul P, Benes FM. Differential hippocampal expression of glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 and 67 messenger RNA in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry 2002; 59: 521-529.
  4. Ongur D, Cullen TJ, Wolf DH, Rohan M, Barreira P, Zalesak M, Heckers S.  The neural basis of relational memory of deficits in schizophrenia.  Archives of General Psychiatry 2006; 63: 356-365.
  5. Holt DJ, Kunkel L, Weiss AP, Geoff DC, Wright CI, Shin LM, Rauch SL, Hootnick J, Heckers S.  Increased medical temporal lobe activation during the passive viewing of emotional and neutral facial expressions in schizophrenia.  Schizophrenia Research 2006; 82: 153-162.
  6. Lisman JE, Coyle JT, Green RW, Javitt DC, Benes FM, Heckers S, Grace AA.  Circuit-based framework for understanding neurotransmitter and risk gene interactions in schizophrenia. Trends in Neurosciences 2008; 31: 234-242.
  7. Williams LE, Must A, Avery S, Woolard A, Woodward ND,  Cohen NJ, Heckers S. Eye-movement behavior reveals relational memory impairment in schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry 2010; 68: 617-624. PMID: 20655509, PMCID: PMC3184178.
  8. Heckers S, Barch DM, Bustillo J, Gaebel W, Gur RE, Malaspina D, Owen MJ, Schultz S, Tandon R, Tsuang MT, Van Os J, Carpenter W. Structure of the psychotic disorders classification in DSM-5. Schizophrenia Research 2013; 150:11-14. PMID: 23707641.
  9. Heckers S, Konradi C. GABAergic mechanisms of hippocampal hyperactivity in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research 2015; 167:4-11. PMID: 25449711.
  10. Walther S, Stegmayer K, Wilson JE, Heckers S. Structure and neural mechanisms of catatonia. Lancet Psychiatry. 2019; 6:610-619. PMID: 31196794.
(615) 322-2665
Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital
1601 23rd Avenue South
Room / Suite
3060
Nashville
Tennessee
37212
Website for Patients
https://www.vumc.org/early-psychosis-program/welcome
stephan.heckers@vumc.org
CV
Heckers CV 2022.pdf
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