Yale Symposium Addresses Recovery from Mental Illness

Yale School of Medicine's annual symposium on recent advances in basic and clinical neuroscience will be held Saturday, March 29, in the school's Harkness Auditorium.

Yale School of Medicine’s annual symposium on recent advances in basic and clinical neuroscience will be held Saturday, March 29, in the school’s Harkness Auditorium.

Speakers at the symposium, which is titled, “Towards Recovery from Mental Illness: How the Brain Develops and Adapts,” will explain how recent research holds promise for revolutionary advances in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illness. The presentations will be directed at a lay audience and will be non-technical in nature.

Opening remarks will be presented by Arthur Evans, deputy commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health; Benjamin Bunney, M.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, and Marilyn Ricci, president of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Connecticut chapter.

John Krystal, M.D., deputy chair for research in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale, will present an “Introduction to the Brain.” Paul Kirwin, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, will discuss late life depression and medical illness. Morris Bell, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry and career research scientist in the Rehabilitation Research and Development Service for the Veterans Administration Connecticut Healthcare System, will talk about improving cognitive and work capacity in schizophrenia.

Gerard Sanacora, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and chief of the Yale Depression Research Program will address using neuroimaging techniques to study the effects of antidepressant treatments on brain chemistry. Flora Vaccarino, M.D., associate professor at the Yale Child Study Center and associate professor of neurobiology, will talk about the implications of neuroscience for understanding neurodevelopmental disorders.

Tony George, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and director of the Program for Research for Smokers with Mental Illness at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, will discuss understanding and treating tobacco addiction in psychiatric patients. Joan Kaufman,

The symposium is presented by the Connecticut Mental Health Center, the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry in association with the Connecticut chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Yale Mental Health Education Program.

The program has been approved for 4.5 Continuing Education Credit Hours by the National Association of Social Workers in Connecticut; meets the continuing education criteria for Connecticut Social Work Licensure renewal; and is approved for 4.5 Continuing Medical Education credits from the Office of Continuing Education, Yale School of Medicine.

For further information, please contact Georgia Miller at 203-974-7723 or by email: georgia.miller@yale.edu

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