MIRECC / CoE

VISN 4 MIRECC Newsflash

Fall 2024

Continuing Our Center's Mission

Recently, our team at the VISN 4 MIRECC had the chance to connect virtually with leaders and expert reviewers from VHA mental health and research. We shared our mission, progress, and plans for the future, and I am thrilled to share that our Center has been renewed for another five years of funding.

Since 1999, we have been proudly based at the Cpl. Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia and the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. Our focus is on Precision Mental Health Care—finding ways to identify biomarkers, conduct self-assessments, and use other measures to inform treatment planning. We have a diverse group of researchers working on everything from groundbreaking initiatives like the Million Veteran Program to clinical trials in areas such as pharmacogenomics, sleep, addiction, and depression. We are also committed to education, supporting fellowship programs and creating training opportunities for clinicians at both local and national levels.

This milestone is a testament to our shared dedication to serving Veterans, and I believe we are on an exciting journey to advance mental health research and achieve meaningful progress in the years ahead.

Kevin P. Kennedy, M.D., who joined us as an investigator in Philadelphia, is interested in evaluating the quality of evidence supporting the pharmacological treatment of depression, with a particular interest in patients with medical and psychiatric comorbidities, the use of psychiatric polypharmacy, and augmentation strategies. He is interested in identifying discrepancies between clinical trial evidence and real-world treatment in VA. At a conceptual level, he is interested in applying concepts of medical reversal and medical conservatism to psychiatry.

Originally from San Diego, Kevin completed medical school at the University of Chicago and residency at UCLA where he was a Chief Resident of Inpatient Psychiatry, Chief Resident of Education, and completed the UCLA Medical Education Fellowship. He is new to the East Coast and has a four-month-old son.

Alexandra Wojda-Burlij, Ph.D., who joined us as an advanced fellow in Philadelphia, studies couples and romantic relationships. Her graduate work focused on understanding interpersonal processes among couples facing various forms of adversity (e.g., financial strain, intimate partner violence). As a fellow, she looks to develop novel couple-based interventions for psychopathology, with the goal of forming a unified protocol for disorders common among Veterans.

Originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., Dr. Wojda-Burlij holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed her internship at the Durham VA Medical Center. Her clinical work has primarily involved the delivery of (and supervision of junior colleagues in) cognitive-behavioral couple therapy. She has also focused other aspects of her clinical training on the individual treatment of emotional disorders, with an emphasis on trauma and related sequelae (e.g., emotion dysregulation), depression, and anxiety disorders.

Lauren Rodriguez, Ph.D. received Career Development funding for her research project, which seeks to better understand the factors that lead to risky alcohol and drug use in Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. She will use a method called ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to capture Veteran real-world experiences as they are living their daily lives.

Participants will be asked to complete brief surveys on their smartphones 4x a day over 30 days. Using this information, Dr. Rodriguez will test a hypothesized risk model and identify specific predictors of substance use. She will also interview Veterans and VA clinicians about their needs and preferences regarding mobile health interventions. Dr. Rodriguez hopes to gather information that will help her develop a new type of intervention that Veterans can access on their smartphones. The goal is to offer more personalized treatment and support Veterans in their moments of highest risk for hazardous substance use.

Hartwell EE, Jinwala Z, Milone J, Ramirez S, Gelernter J, Kranzler HR, Kember RL. Application of polygenic scores to a deeply phenotyped sample enriched for substance use disorders reveals extensive pleiotropy with psychiatric and somatic traits. Neuropsychopharmacology. July 2024. [link]

Kranzler HR, Davis CN, Feinn R, Jinwala Z, Khan Y, Oikonomou A, Silva-Lopez D, Burton I, Dixon M, Milone J, Ramirez S, Shifman N, Levey D, Gelernter J, Hartwell EE, Kember RL. Gene × environment effects and mediation involving adverse childhood events, mood and anxiety disorders, and substance dependence. Nature Human Behavior. August 2024. [link]

Remmert JE, Destefano L, Chinman M, Oslin DW, Mavandadi S. Development of a peer-delivered primary care intervention to improve veteran mental health treatment engagement. Psychological Services. August 2024. [link]

Tighe CA, Quinn DA, Boudreaux-Kelly M, Atchison K, Bachrach RL. Insomnia and unhealthy alcohol use in a National Sample of Women Veterans 50 years and older enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration. Journal of Women & Aging. September 2024. [link]

Sperry SH, Boland EM, Burgess HJ, Gonzalez R, Gonzalez S, Lane JM, McCarthy MJ, McInnis MG, Yocum AK, Menkes MW, Gehrman PR. Bipolar disorder is characterized by chronotype instability: A longitudinal investigation of circadian typology and mood. Psychiatry Research. October 2024. [link]

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