The COBRA study seeks to identify the specific neural circuits that are altered in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our experiments test the strength of “divisive normalization”, a measure that describes how neurons in the brain suppress each other. Our hypothesis is that suppressive interactions are reduced in individuals with ASD. Because suppressive neural interactions are well understood in the visual system, we use it as a model system. Suppressive neural interactions are measured in response to precisely controlled visual stimuli with a variety of brain measures including functional MRI to index neural responses, diffusion MRI to describe their anatomical connections, and EEG to understand their dynamics.
Geographic Area: Washington
Autism biomarkers consortium for clinical trials
This is a multicenter longitudinal study that aims to identify, develop and validate a set of measures that can be used as stratification biomarkers and/or sensitive and reliable objective measures of social impairment in ASD that could serve as markers of long term clinical outcome.
Sustaining quality
Several recent studies have found that for evidence-based psychosocial interventions (EBPIs) to be delivered more effectively, sustained quality, ongoing supervision, and guidance is critical.
This study will develop an electronic support tool to support quality delivery of PST that is based on clinician feedback. We hypothesize that supporting clinician delivery of EBPIs will result in enhanced quality of treatment and better patient outcomes.
Project AMPS
The goal of this project is to develop and test a 3-week mobile-app that tracks mood, alcohol use, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol-related consequences 2x a day and provides real-time personalized feedback using individuals’ daily experiences and intentions. The app is designed for students attending 2-year/community colleges and 4-year colleges. This work is significant because there is currently very little attention paid specifically for 2-year/community college students and this app provides real-time information on a platform that nearly 100% of young adults have and are accessing hourly.
Project STEP
This project is designed to integrate basic and clinical science to translate mechanisms of recovery from PTSD to testing an intervention in individuals with PTSD and marijuana use. We will recruit 72 individuals with PTSD and varying levels of marijuana use, 36 with current heavy marijuana use and 36 without current marijuana use, to complete a conditional discrimination and extinction task in order to understand the relationship between marijuana and fear learning in individuals with pathological fear. Following this task, participants will receive a brief 6 session imaginal exposure protocol (IE) to explore whether this adapted short form treatment shows increased feasibility (efficacy, reduced drop out) for individuals with co-occurring PTSD and marijuana use. We will also be able to test the link between basic fear and recovery processes by looking at the extinction task as a predictor of treatment response for individuals with and without marijuana use. This research is significant in its potential to identify a predictor of treatment response, to test an underlying mechanism of recovery for PTSD in individuals with PTSD and co-occurring marijuana use, and to test feasibility of a novel intervention for a difficult to treat population.
mHealth Washington
The mHealth Washington team is partnering with 20 community agencies to implement FOCUS in multiple counties throughout Washington State. This implementation effectiveness trial aims to evaluate strategies to integrate mHealth into real-world clinical practice. The team is comprised of multi-discipline experts including academic researchers, policy makers, mental health advocates, Medicaid leaders and individuals with lived experience.
Discovering the capacity of primary care front-line staff to deliver a low-intensity technology-enhanced intervention to treat geriatric depression
This study will explore the feasibility of implementation of a technology-enhanced Evidence-Based Psychosocial Behavioral Intervention entitled Mobile Motivational Physical Activity Targeted Intervention (MobMPATI) by frontline primary care staff (e.g., nurses, medical assistants) to expand workforce capacity to deliver acceptable, sustainable, and effective treatment for depression in older adults.
Developing a digital training resource for clinicians learning CBT for psychosis (CBTpro)
This project aims to develop and test a digital health resource to provide training and feedback to community mental health clinicians aiming to learn CBT for psychosis (CBTpro). Following the development and iterative testing of the CBTpro prototype, we will recruit 100 community mental health providers and 300 clients with psychosis from two large, publicly-funded community mental health agencies, and randomize them to receive either CBTpro or typical training resources. Following the intervention period, we will examine clinician CBT adherence and competency as well as patient psychotic symptoms.
Pilot study of mHealth for Veterans with serious mental illness
This project aims to examine the feasibility and acceptability of FOCUS, a mobile self-management intervention for individuals with serious mental illnesses. We will recruit 30 veterans receiving services at VA Puget Sound and provide FOCUS for one month, examining feasibility of integrating this intervention into outpatient VA services, acceptability to veterans, and preliminary outcomes including depression, psychotic symptoms, sleep, and recovery.
Study to Promote Innovation in Rural Integrated Telepsychiatry (SPIRIT)
The primary goal of this project is to quantitatively compare the treatment experience, engagement, self-reported clinical outcomes, and recovery-oriented outcomes of patients initially randomized to telepsychiatry collaborative care and telepsychiatry enhanced referral. In addition, for the subset of patients randomized to telepsychiatry enhanced referral who do not engage in treatment and are still symptomatic at 6 months, an additional goal is to quantitatively compare the treatment experience, treatment engagement, self-reported clinical outcomes and recovery-oriented outcomes of patients randomized to continued- telepsychiatry enhanced referral or phone enhanced referral. Additional goals are to gain an in-depth understanding of patients’ and providers’ treatment experiences and to examine treatment heterogeneity among subgroups of patients based on race/ethnicity, age and clinical severity.
