Author Archives: samweiss

Individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) have variable clinical outcomes and low conversion rates, limiting development of novel and personalized treatments. Moreover, given risks of antipsychotic drugs, safer effective medications for CHR individuals are needed.

Although meta-analytic studies have shown that 25-33% of those at Clinical High Risk (CHR) for psychosis transition to a first episode of psychosis within three years, less is known about estimating the risk of transition at an individual level. Digital phenotyping offers a novel approach to explore the nature of...

The findings from this study extend our understanding of how cultural variables may influence presentation of psychosis-risk syndromes and suggest that being a non-native English speaker or having recently immigrated may hinder performance on certain verbal neuropsychological measures.

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Schizophrenia (AMP®SCZ) is a large-scale study designed to identify biomarkers that predict and explain clinical outcomes in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. Nearly 2,000 CHR and 640 community participants will be followed for two years, with biomarker assessments at baseline and two months....

In the canonical model of sensory processing, primary sensory cortex initiates a hierarchical transmission of information to higher-order cortices. Here, we identified alternative sensory pathways that bypass the primary auditory cortex and directly activate higher-order cortex within <10 ms, revealing parallel and distributed processing of fast sensory information across cortical...

The concepts set and setting have been thought to be crucial to outcomes from psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for 50 years, but they have faced several methodological challenges. Here we highlight an underappreciated challenge: that they have been vaguely defined in a way that limits research advances and clinical guidance. After outlining...

Ovarian steroids, like estrogen and progesterone, affect brain activity, including energy use and serotonin signaling, especially during changes in the female reproductive cycle or menopause. Studies using brain imaging techniques suggest these hormones can influence brain metabolism and might have potential roles in brain protection and inflammation, but more research...

On June 18–19, 2025, ACCESS Mental Health welcomed ten undergraduate students from local universities to the UNC School of Medicine’s Roper Hall for the inaugural 2025 Psychiatry Careers Pathway Program (PCPP), a two-day immersive experience for undergraduate students to explore psychiatry as a potential career. Throughout the program, students engaged...