The Carolina Stress Initiative is a collaborative effort between clinical and basic scientists to improve our understanding of trauma and stress-related disorders.

Stress-related psychiatric disorders, including major depression, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety disorders, are the most common mental illnesses in the United States. With the recent Covid19 pandemic, both the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health predict that the number of people suffering from trauma and stress-related disorders will rise dramatically and to potentially catastrophic proportions. To address this call to action, the UNC Department of Psychiatry is launching the Carolina Stress Initiative (CSI), with the primary mission to conduct key translational research to improve understanding and treatment of trauma and stress-related disorders. This mission is pursued by bringing together basic and clinical researchers with complementary expertise on neuropsychiatric epigenetics and the use of animal models in neuroscience. The ultimate goal is to develop novel therapeutic strategies for stress-related disorders.