This episode includes a fascinating interview with a researcher in ultrasound, Dr. Michael Canney who is an acoustics researcher the chief scientific officer at a French company named Carthera (https://carthera.eu/) and they make ultrasound devices that can disrupt the blood-brain barrier in order to let medicines into the brain that otherwise could only get through in very small amounts.

We talk more broadly about the explosion of various applications of ultrasound beyond imaging, including things like tissue ablation (or basically cooking highly focussed loci of tissue inside your body), or cavitation (where ultrasound causes tiny bubbles to rapidly expand inside cells or vessels), and I end with a brief discussion of the potential of ultrasound for neuromodulation.

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

This PsyDactic podcast episode, hosted by Dr. O'Leary, delves into the complex and often controversial topic of diagnosing Pediatric Bipolar Disorder and its differentiation from other conditions, particularly Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD). Dr. O'Leary, a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellow, explores the DSM-5-TR diagnostic framework, the history of Pediatric Bipolar diagnosis, the debate surrounding irritability as a diagnostic criterion, and the challenges of distinguishing it from ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and trauma-related disorders. Using case vignettes and drawing on both personal knowledge and AI-assisted research, the episode aims to provide a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of this challenging area of child psychiatry.

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

Gambling disorder may be the most under-diagnosed disorder in the DSM.  This is an exhaustive treatment of the neurobiological, psychological, and societal aspects of gambling addiction, featuring discussions on the brain's reward system, cognitive distortions, and the impact of advertising and the design of gambling products.

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

Functional Neurological Disorder was previously called Conversion Disorder or psychogenic neurological symptoms and is a condition in which a patient develops any number of neurological symptoms (such as loss of ability to move or seizure like episodes or inability to feel parts of their body or phantom pain) that cannot be explained by a clear lesion in the nervous system.  It was called conversion disorder because it was previously thought that repressed emotions or desires had been converted into neurological symptoms as a defense against those emotions or desires.  Therefore, the symptoms were "psychogenic" instead of neurological or biological.  Even though emotional states contribute to neurological function, we now know that this model is incorrect.  The most compelling new models of functional neurological symptoms come from the theories of the Bayesian brain, predictive processing, and active inference.

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

Dr. O'Leary introduces PsyDactic - Child and Adolescent Board Study edition by sharing the first of two episodes on behaviorism, that field of psychology that took the radical stance of completely ignoring the fact that we have a mind.

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

-- Dr. O'Leary explores how an artificial intelligence tool summarizes recent data on the use of nicotinic receptor modulators for the treatment of anxiety and PTSD.  Please send any comments to [email protected].

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

"People are 14 times more likely to die during a hospital stay than outside of hospital for inpatient psychiatry."  In the last episode, I shared an episode of Psychiatry Boot Camp, which is a podcast created by Dr. Mark Mullen to help medical students and junior residents hone their psychiatric skills.  Mark interviews some of the most competent and amazing psychiatrists our country has to offer.  I am excited that Mark let me share his interview with Dr. Tyler Black, who talks about evaluating suicidal patients.  I have never heard any advice about suicide assessments as insightful and compassionate as what Tyler Black has to offer.

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

In the last episode, Dr. O'Leary interviewed the creator and host of the Psychiatry Bootcamp Podcast, Dr. Mark Mullen, who is currently a psychiatry clerkship director at St. Louis University School of Medicine.  He created this podcast after discovering a dearth of resources available for medical students and junior psychiatry residents to prepare them for their transition to practice. 

He graciously allowed PsyDactic to include a couple of his episodes in this feed as a way to spread the good news about Psychiatry Boot Camp.  This is his introductory episode where he sets the tone of PBC by interviewing Dr. Awais Aftab, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Case Western University,  and Dr. Allen Frances, Chair of the DSM-4 Task Force and Chair Emeritus at Duke.

Check out Psychiatry Boot Camp!

https://linktr.ee/psychbootcamp

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38724723/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psychiatry-boot-camp/id1671902940

https://open.spotify.com/show/4Vjlz4CO0G5D6nGo74O0jE

https://www.audible.com/podcast/Psychiatry-Boot-Camp/B0BVK4HYLW

https://x.com/markrmullen

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

Dr. O'Leary is excited to introduce you to  Psychiatry Boot Camp (PBC), a podcast created by Dr. Mark Mullen during his psychiatry residency to help prepare medical students for psychiatry residency. It covers fundamental topics in psychiatry and inspires young psychiatrists to think critically about their approach to the field. The curriculum is based on published literature on psychiatry crash courses and boot camps, and features interviews with experts in the field.   Some specific PBC episodes that are discussed include those introducing students to psychiatry as a discipline with unique challenges, including interviews with Dr. Awais Aftab, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Case Western University,  and Dr. Allen Frances, Chair of the DSM-4 Task Force and Chair Emeritus at Duke.  We also discuss Dr. Mullen's eye-opening interview with Dr. Tyler Black, a suicidologist and child psychiatrist at British Columbia Children's Hospital who provides the best foundational discussion of the suicide assessment that Dr. O'Leary has ever encountered.

Enjoy this interview and afterward, please check out Psychiatry Boot Camp.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38724723/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psychiatry-boot-camp/id1671902940

https://open.spotify.com/show/4Vjlz4CO0G5D6nGo74O0jE

https://www.audible.com/podcast/Psychiatry-Boot-Camp/B0BVK4HYLW

https://x.com/markrmullen

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.

--In today's episode, Dr. O'Leary explores agonists, inverse agonists, partial agonists, and antagonists. These terms describe how molecules bind to receptors and either increase, decrease, or prevent changes in receptor signaling. Agonists increase receptor activity, with full agonists like dopamine and serotonin raising activity to its maximum. Partial agonists can increase activity in the absence of full agonists but decrease it in their presence. Inverse agonists reduce the baseline activity of receptors. Antagonists block receptor activity without changing the baseline rate. We also discussed the complex interactions between these molecules and how their effects can vary depending on the presence of other molecules and the specific receptors involved.

Below are a couple of helpful references:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2804881/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00023210-199605050-00007 

Please leave feedback at https://www.psydactic.com or send any comments to [email protected].

References and readings (when available) are posted at the end of each episode transcript, located at psydactic.buzzsprout.com. All opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the person speaking and should not be confused with the opinions of anyone else. We reserve the right to be wrong. Nothing in this podcast should be treated as individual medical advice.