Prossin shares research results at NIH meeting
Alan Prossin, MBBS, associate professor in the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, presented at the National Institutes of Health's annual Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL) Initiative Investigators meeting in early April.

To combat the opioid epidemic, the NIH collaborated with various stakeholders to identify a set of research priorities and concrete strategies capable of providing rapid and durable solutions to the opioid crisis. In 2018, the HEAL Initiative emerged from these efforts. NIH HEAL Initiative released a request for applications with very specific objectives, many soliciting novel, opioid sparing-strategies in prevention and management of pain.

Prossin’s work is well-aligned with HEAL Initiative priorities. His multi-phase project aims to discover and validate a novel bio-signature from blood that predicts post-operative pain. This predictive bio-signature is well poised to inform novel, opioid sparing strategies in prevention and management of post-operative pain.

He has assembled a multidisciplinary collaborative team that includes colleagues from surgery, public health, psychiatry, pediatric surgery, nuclear medicine, and radiology across UTHealth Houston and the Texas Medical Center.

His clinical trial enrolls healthy patients awaiting elective abdominal surgery and follows them throughout the course of their treatment. Days prior to surgery, patients complete a standardized, sustained, pain challenge for 20 minutes during brain imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) and [11C]-carfentanil (CFN), a potent opioid radio-tracer drug. Every 20 seconds during the pain challenge, the patient records how much pain they are experiencing while CFN PET measures endorphins released in their brain, via a push button.

After this process, the patient receives an anti-inflammatory drug and returns the following day to repeat process. Blood samples obtained during the pain challenge will be used to discover the bio-signature. Preliminary data presented at NIH shows that altering inflammatory milieu with an anti-inflammatory drug reduces the amount of pain experienced and enhances endorphin release in certain brain regions. The bio-signature discovery process is well underway. Evidence from machine learning algorithms, developed in conjunction with collaborators and graduate students at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, applied to pilot data is encouraging.

Once the bio-signature is discovered, Prossin will start another clinical trial with medically variable patients awaiting surgery to see if the same bio-signature predicts acute and chronic post-operative pain. The predictive bio-signature emerging from these initial studies will progress through a new NIH-sponsored national clinical trial network to test its ability to inform alternative, opioid sparing strategies that reduce post-operative pain, prevent development of chronic pain, and ultimately, reduce the post-operative opioid burden. 

While this project has faced challenges, such as clinical trials halted due to the COVID-19 outbreak, recruitment during COVID-related reduction in surgical procedures, and shutting down the PET imaging center, the collaborative team-based approach led by Prossin has been successful in moving this project forward.

He is grateful for the opportunity to share the data his team has collected.

“It’s a big achievement,” Prossin said. “I’ve been able to network and create new collaborative opportunities. Hopefully, we can bolster UTHealth Houston’s reputation as a cutting-edge research institution where success is achieved through implementation of a multidisciplinary, team-based approach.”

Read more about the NIH HEAL initiative here. 
Faculty spotlight:
Jackson joins Trauma and Resilience Center team
Sarah Jackson, PhD, associate professor, recently joined the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She will work with the UTHealth Houston Trauma and Resilience Center.

Jackson’s specialty from a clinical perspective is the treatment PTSD in patients with combined medical, psychology, and polytrauma rehabilitation needs. Her research focuses on human cognitive and affective neuroscience in the realms of biomarker identification, EEG, machine learning, and precision medicine as well as health and human performance interventions with military, Veterans, and first responders.

She earned a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology, Marriage and Family Therapy in 2007 from National University, Marriage & Family Therapy Program, Sacramento, California. Jackson completed her pre-doctoral internship while enlisted in United States Air Force in 2009, completing rotations in outpatient, neuropsychology and health psychology. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University.

Mostly recently, Jackson served as an associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine. She also serves as volunteer clinical professor at the University of California at Davis, and maintains adjunct faculty appointments with National University and Alliant International University. She also served as a clinical psychologist in the United States Air Force from 2010-2013.

Jackson’s experience as a clinical psychologist on activity duty with the Air Force has uniquely shaped her clinical practice and research focus. In her position, she will continue with her independent research program investigating the neural, emotional, and cognitive basis of brain-based disorders with the aim of enhancing treatments and developing novel treatment interventions in patients with PTSD and major depressive disorder.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled to be joining UTHealth Houston," Jackson said. "I’m looking forward to pushing the cutting edge of our field’s capabilities with this amazing, capable and exceptional team”
Fries awarded pilot grant for suicide epigenetics study
Gabriel Fries, PhD, assistant professor in the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, recently received a medical school pilot grant to advance his research of suicide epigenetics.
 
Each year, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston awards $25,000 grants, aimed at projects that will eventually receive larger grants from entities, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
 
Fries’ project, which will be conducted at UTHealth Houston Harris Country Psychiatric Center (HCPC) and Behavioral and Biomedical Sciences Building (BBSB), studies biological traits that occur in patients with mood disorders presenting with suicidal ideation.
 
Fries and his team, which includes Rodrigo Machado-Vieira, MD, PhD; Consuelo Walss-Bass, PhD; Robert Suchting, PhD; Camila Lima, PhD; and Zhongming Zhao, PhD, will investigate a longitudinal sample of patients from which blood is collected upon admission to the HCPC with acute suicidal ideation and immediately before discharge to identify genetic changes that occur along with the improvement in symptoms. In a technique called single-cell RNA-sequencing, the team will look at cell-specific changes in the expression levels of certain genes that occur in parallel to the decreasing suicidal ideation. The goal is to biologically explore suicide-related epigenetic changes.
 
At a later stage, Fries hopes to explore the similarities between alterations in the blood of people being treated for suicidal ideation and in the brains of people who died of suicide. If there are specific genes that consistently change along with symptom improvement, Fries says specialized treatments and novel drugs to combat suicide can be developed.
 
Fries is excited for the opportunity to understand what causes suicide and how to best treat it.
 
“It’s a very hard project,” Fries said. “After a couple of years of collecting samples, we finally have enough samples to get started with molecular analyses. It’s still early on in the project, but I think this has potential for a great impact on helping patients and families.”
Selvaraj explores ultrasound to battle mood disorders
Sudhakar Selvaraj, MD, PhD, associate professor, is working in collaboration with Jair Soares, MD, PhD, Pat R. Rutherford, Jr. Chair in Psychiatry, on ultrasound neuromodulation device technology, aimed at treating mental health disorders.

Selvaraj received funding for the ultrasound neuromodulation machine from the Anne and Don Fizer foundation to develop innovative treatments for depression and suicide.

By using this ultrasound noninvasive technology machine, Selvaraj and his team can noninvasively modulate deeper brain areas than other techniques currently used, such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), which can only reach the outer, or cortical, areas of the head.

Utilizing this innovative technology, Selvaraj and his team can gain a better understanding of how the brain works by having the ability to look into deeper brain areas such as the amygdala, thalamus, hippocampus, and others that regulate human emotions and mood. He hopes that using ultrasound neuromodulation as a treatment, much like TMS, would help patients with anxiety, depression, and other mental health-related issues overcome these illnesses in situations when medication isn’t enough.

While neuromodulation research isn't new, Selvaraj said, it's only been in recent years that the ultrasound aspect has come into play. The added benefit of being able to more clearly look at the brain and identify what exactly is going on in the brains of patients with mental health disorders inspired Selvaraj to submit a request to launch this project.

“It’s very exciting,” Selvaraj said. “I'm grateful to Fizer foundation, UTHealth Houston Office of Development, and our department for their support. This new technology will allow us to take a step farther in understanding depression and find better treatments. At the end of the day, it’s about improving the patient’s symptoms.”
Pictures from the 2022 UTHealth Houston Psychiatry Update Conference
On Saturday, April 9, the department hosted its first in-person conference since February 2020, right before the COVID-19 shutdown. This was a hybrid conference with both in-person and online attendance options.

In total, 120 medical professionals attended the conference, 80 in-person and another 40 joining virtually.

Thank you to everyone who made this conference a success!
Photos taken by Aaron Zapata/UTHealth Houston
Watch: Our commitment to advancing brain and behavioral health
Registration is now open for the UTHealth Houston Addictions Conference!
Clinical trials
The following clinical trials are in operation, following all necessary safety guidelines. If you're interested, contact the appropriate study.

We are conducting a study to develop adaptive treatment interventions; that is, interventions that change based on how the participant is doing. Individuals seeking treatment for cocaine addiction may qualify to participate in this two-phase program.
Contact: 713-500-DRUG (3784)

This study aims to examine the safety and efficacy of allogenic mesenchymal stem cells as an adjunctive treatment of treatment-resistant bipolar depression. Patients will be assigned into a treatment or a placebo group.
Contact: 713-486-2627

The UTHealth Houston Center of Excellence on Mood Disorders at the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is collaborating with LivaNova, a global medical technology company, to start a new clinical trial – the “RECOVER study” – to help treat depression.
Contact: 713-486-2627

To see all open studies, visit our website.
Publications
In the news
Jane Hamilton, PhD, MPH; and Lokesh Shahani, MD, MPH, were interviewed by STAT News about how UTHealth Houston’s Harris County Psychiatric Center is using machine learning to better understand which patients are more likely to need longer stays.

Hamilton also participated in a panel that discussed how UTHealth Houston is leveraging telehealth to deliver mental health care to individuals experiencing homelessness.

Jennifer Bahrman, PhD, was interviewed by the Doug Pike Fifty+ show on KPRC radio about how to manage stress (starts at the 11:02 mark).

Luis Fernandez-Wishe, MD, spoke to Univision Houston Channel 45 about how to manage stress.
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Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth
713-486-2500
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