UCSF Psychiatry News

Many institutions – such as schools, hospitals, and workplaces – have reduced the availability of sugar-sweetened beverages to help fight health problems such as weight gain, diabetes and heart disease. But for some people a sales ban that takes the temptation out of the workplace may not be enough.

UC San Francisco's psychiatry program has been ranked fifth in the nation in U.S. News & World Report's annual survey of the best graduate and professional schools. For the third consecutive year, UCSF is also the top public university for graduate and professional psychiatry programs in the nation.

As mounting evidence points to the link between cardiovascular disease and dementia, a new study led by UCSF finds that young adulthood may be the most critical period to practice the healthy lifestyle habits that may protect the brain from cognitive decline decades later.

Four early career researchers from the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences have been selected to present their scholarship and research at Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Grand Rounds events later this spring as part of a series designed to highlight the work of senior trainees.

People who have concussions may be at increased risk of developing sleep disorders years later, according to a study published in the March 3, 2021, online issue of Neurology.

The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines with impressively high effectiveness offers hope that the pandemic will someday soon be under control. But as more people are vaccinated, new questions emerge about what factors might contribute to long-term effectiveness.

The University of California, San Francisco Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences will host its 16th annual Robert S. Wallerstein Lecture in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy on Wednesday, March 24, 2021, from 1:00-3:00 p.m.

UCSF psychiatrist and neuroscientist Vikaas Sohal, MD, PhD, has been selected as the recipient of the 2021 A.E. Bennett Basic Research Award by the Society of Biological Psychiatry. He will be presented with the award, given annually in recognition of superb international research in biological psychiatry by young investigators, during the society's virtual annual meeting later this spring.

Women who have experienced high levels of trauma in childhood, such as abuse by a parent, are biologically older at the epigenetic cellular level in adulthood than women of the same age who have not experienced such adversity, according to a new study by UCSF.

A new study of autism risk genes by UCSF and UC Berkeley scientists implicates disruption in prenatal neurogenesis — a process in which specialized “progenitor” cells give rise to new brain cells — in the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).