Selected Formative Assessment Question:
Describe at least three interventional techniques that can be used to modify brain function and circuits – how do they work and what are their relative strengths / limitations?

Check out one of the following resources that are excerpted from the Neuroscience Perspectives in Psychiatry course and then share any thoughts, questions, or reactions in a comment below.

1. What We’ve Got Here is Failure to Communicate: Improving Interventional Psychiatry with Closed-Loop Stimulation – Take a dive into DBS with this Clinical Commentary.
2. “Current Reality” – One of our favorite “This ‘Stuff’ Is Really Cool” (TSIRC) videos (7-10’ presentations that are designed to be a hybrid between a TED talk, a Moth Story, and a Pecha Kucha. Each piece is designed to take one core concept in neuroscience and make it clear, relevant, and accessible for a broad audience.) This TSIRC describes a cutting-edge, neuromodulatory approach to treating PTSD.
3. Circuit Workouts: You’d be Better Off DREADD – One of the best TSIRCers out there (yes, a person can be a ‘TSIRCer’!), join Jenny Dwyer as she explains Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs… how chic!
4. Circuit Workouts: Feeling Lightheaded? – Optogenetics is one of the coolest scientific discoveries… well… ever. If you don’t already know what it is and how it works, drop everything and watch this talk.
5. ECT is one of the most effective treatments in all of medicine. But… how does it work? Check out this collection of mini-videos from Dr. Sarah Lisanby, Director of the NIMH Division of Translational Research.
6. The Electrochemical Brain: Lessons from The Bell Jar and Interventional Psychiatry – A piece that touches on historical treatments and perspectives on depression before introducing an emerging branch of medicine: interventional psychiatry.

Want to see more of Session 6?
Check out the full syllabus here
(note: to access the full set of NNCI materials, everything is free but you’ll need to first register for the website)