This mini-series episode of What Makes Up Your Mind looks at another aspect of AI for Mental Health (AI4MH), a Special Initiative of the Chair of Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Our guest, Dr. Shannon Wiltsey Stirman, is developing ways to utilize Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance the delivery and availability of the latest mental health treatments for PTSD.

As a professor of psychiatry with many years working with the veteran community, Dr. Wiltsey Stirman knows well how the shortage of therapists, and their over-extended bandwidth, limits their access to training and administering the newest in ever-evolving, evidence-based medical care.

As co-Director of CREATE – Stanford’s Center for Responsible and Effective AI Technology Enhancement of treatment for PTSD, Dr. Wiltsey Stirman’s work is utilizing this powerful technology to close the research-to-provider-to-patient treatment gap. This is AI as a human-assist for therapists, not a replacement, and our discussion includes what current commercial chatbots can and cannot offer patients. Dr. Wiltsey Stirman is also co-Lead of the Stanford Mental Health Technology and Innovation Hub.

More Information

• About Dr. Shannon Wiltsey Stirman: https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/shannon-wiltsey-stirman
• CREATE website: CREATE
• CREATE on Linkedin
• By & About CREATE: Research and articles
• Monthly Webinar Series: CREATE Webinars | CREATE
• The Mental Health Technology and Innovation Hub: https://thetechhub.stanford.edu/
• AI4MH Initiative : https://ai4mh.stanford.edu

If our home, planet earth, is in peril (and it is!), then so are we. As we experience more frequent and ferocious natural disasters, the irreversible loss of life-sustaining habitats, and a climate we’ve turned into an adversary of our very existence, an existential crisis is brewing. Along with concern for our physical security, our mental well-being is being battered in these storms…figuratively, but also quite literally.

Among the most affected and concerned are young people who are contemplating their future in a profoundly precarious world. Understanding, documenting, and measuring the emotional cost of their fears and anxiety is the work of Dr. Britt Wray, an instructor in Stanford’s Dept of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and the Director of CIRCLE - Community-minded Interventions for Resilience, Climate Leadership, and Emotional Wellbeing.

In this installment of What Makes Up Your Mind, Dr. Wray shares her research into the extent of the trauma of Climate Change on our youth, and her global work in empowering them with tools to manage their mental health in the face of these threats, which includes finding their own ways to take action toward solutions.

Dr. Wray's Stanford Profile: https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/britt-wray

CIRCLE website: https://circle.sites.stanford.edu/

In medical research, Artificial Intelligence is a game-changer with its power to collect and cross-analyze masses of data and lab findings to find new discoveries. And more, its ability to be trained to unlock answers to specific medical questions offers a quantum leap in refining diagnoses and treatments.

In this episode of What Makes Up Your Mind, Dr. Kilian Pohl (professor in Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and by courtesy, in Electrical Engineering) explains the basics of creating and using AI tools for improving mental health research, including in adolescent substance use, HIV, and lifelong brain development and aging.

Listen in on how Dr. Pohl sees this technology bringing better mental healthcare to the entire world.

More Information

Dr. Kilian Pohl: https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/kilian-pohl

AI4MH Initiative : https://ai4mh.stanford.edu

Computational Neuroscience Lab: https://cnslab.stanford.edu

Anyone who has grappled with substance use, or loves a person with addictive behaviors, knows the wrenching relationship struggles and the often futile-feeling search for workable help.

Well, this episode of WHAT MAKES UP YOUR MIND brings you hopeful developments thanks to the research and clinical work of our guest, Dr. Karen Chan Osilla, a licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the Stanford Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Click LISTEN to learn about an empathy-based program called CRAFT - Community Reinforcement Approach and Family Training. A key focus of CRAFT, and Dr. Osilla’s practice, is to support the family and friends of the person with an addiction, thereby empowering them in their own wellness and as effective advocates for their loved one to consider treatment. The positive reinforcement aspect of CRAFT teaches skills that reduce the tension and confrontation that’s so often a part of personal relationships where addiction is present. It’s the opposite of Tough Love. Science shows this approach works, and Dr. Osilla’s research in opioid abuse confirms that.

Read more about Dr. Karen Osilla, and find CRAFT resources here:

https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/karen-osilla

Our conversation with this nationally recognized researcher and leader in Muslim Mental Health delves into her work of creating bridges between the science of medicine and the spiritual life of patients. Specifically, blending modern psychiatric and psychological treatments with the beliefs, customs, and rituals of Islam. Dr. Awaad’s research has renewed the recognition of the Islamic tradition of holistic care of mind, body, and spirit, reaching back more than a millennium. And, while her focus is on meeting the mental health needs of the Muslim community, the approach of welcoming a patient’s belief system into a treatment plan is applicable to all faiths, philosophies, and cultural experience.

For more on Dr. Awaad, her work, and additional appointments at Stanford: https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Rania_Awaad

Director of the Muslim Mental Health and Islamic Psychology Lab https://med.stanford.edu/mmhip.html , where you will find all research publications and links to Dr. Awaad’s many books

Chief of centerspace Clinic, providing trauma-informed care within cross-cultural dynamics) https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/patient_care/centerspace.html

For neuro disorders like Autism, Attention Deficit, and Hyperactivity, causes and cures have largely remained a mystery. Yet, promising work in Stanford Psychiatry’s BRIDGE Lab is going after answers in the very nucleus of our cells, our genes, the infinitesimal carriers of information that determine the traits of all living things. Dr. Tamar Green, with help from participating families, is scanning the brains of kids with neuro conditions, mapping their genetic pathways to recognize, understand, and eventually intervene in disease-causing mutations. This intricate and microscopic research, sometimes involving more than 30-thousand genes in a single brain cell, is hoped to yield big and wide-raging benefits for treatments and, someday, cures.

More Information

• About Dr. Tamar Green: https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/tamar-green
• The Brain Imaging, Development, and Genetics (BRIDGE) Lab: https://med.stanford.edu/bridge-lab.html
• Research Participation: https://med.stanford.edu/bridge-lab/for-families-and-participants.html
• Research Support: https://my.supportlpch.org/give/489426/#!/donation/checkout

In this episode in our CNI-X Mini-Series on WHAT MAKES UP YOUR MIND we meet two of the Staff Mentors who add a unique dimension to Stanford Psychiatry’s Clinical Neuroscience Immersion Experience for high school students. Throughout the two week program, these college-age mentors - usually CNI-X alums themselves - share their knowledge and experience in neuroscience, facilitate discussion, and support participants as they gain confidence in exploring new subjects. Just by their presence, they offer the students an example of where they may choose to be in just a year or two in the future as college students, perhaps on their way to a career in mental healthcare. In this mini-pod, meet Nicola Manalili, who combined her love of science and the desire to make the world a better place and is now in her third year of college studying Public Health. Joining Nicola is Abhi Anand who fell in love with psychology in high school and caught the business bug watching Shark Tank with friends. He put the two together in a recent degree in Business Psychology and Marketing.

Learn more about CNI-X, the role of mentors, and how to apply at https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/special-initiatives/CNIX.html

The subject is Circadian Rhythms, and you’re going to be surprised at the influence this intricate interaction of body clocks exerts over our lives! The high school participants in Stanford Psychiatry’s two-week Clinical Neuroscience Immersion Experience (CNI-X) always are when they meet Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Division of Sleep Medicine. Dr. Zeitzer researches the mysteries of the system that drives almost every living thing on earth, and in humans impacts not just sleep, but everything from our temperature to the quality of our decision-making. As with all of the CNI-X presenters, Dr. Zeitzer’s research and discoveries make for an invaluable lesson in life and self-awareness, as well as science.

For more on CNI-X, Dr. Zeitzer, and all the program presenters: https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/special-initiatives/CNIX

Bringing high school students into the fascinating world of Brain-Mind science is what the Stanford Psychiatry Clinical Neuroscience Immersion Experience (CNI-X) is all about. Along with the science itself, better understanding the human brain – the miraculous power of it as well as the conditions that can challenge its functioning – is information that will serve participants for a lifetime. This is the gift Stanford’s world-class researchers and clinicians offer CNI-X participants, including Dr. Odette Harris, Stanford Professor and neurosurgeon. Dr. Harris treats traumatic brain injury at all stages, from surgery through recovery. Her CNI-X presentation fosters the critical thinking needed to address the ethics of the life and death decisions that come with her work. Program participants get rare access to Dr. Harris’ unique perspective which is sure to leave a lasting impression.

For more on CNI-X, Dr. Odette Harris, and all of Stanford’s expert presenters: https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/special-initiatives/CNIX

Teens have no greater ally in their life challenges than Dr. Rafael Pelayo, Stanford Psychiatry Clinical Professor and Sleep Medicine Specialist at the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center.

An advocate of healthy sleep for all, Dr. Pelayo is especially passionate about how we - as a society - make it nearly impossible, through school schedules and achievement pressures, for kids to get the sleep they need. In his CNI-X presentation, Dr. Pelayo helps participants see the connection between healthy sleep and the very quality of their lives and relationships. In this mini-pod in our series on the Clinical Neuroscience Immersion Experience for high schoolers through the Stanford Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences you’ll hear why Dr. Pelayo is one of the unforgettable presenters in the two-week program.

Go to https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/special-initiatives/CNIX for information on CNI-X, Dr. Rafael Pelayo, and all the program presenters.