The Biological Psychiatry Podcast

Elvisha Dhamala
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The Biological Psychiatry Podcast is the official podcast of the Biological Psychiatry family of journals. Hosted by Social Media Editor Elvisha Dhamala, each episode features in-depth conversations with researchers about their latest work on psychiatric disorders, brain science, and mental health. The Biological Psychiatry journals advance scientific research and education in fields investigating the nature, causes, mechanisms, and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, and behavior. This podcast makes the research accessible to both scientists and non-scientists. From innovative findings in neuroimaging and genetics to clinical trials and translational research, we explore the discoveries, implications, and future directions shaping the field of biological psychiatry.

Episodes

  1. 3d ago

    Differential Effects of Psychotic Illness and Antipsychotics on the Brain

    In this episode of The Biological Psychiatry Podcast, Dr. Elvisha Dhamala sits down with Dr. Sidhant Chopra from Orygen and the University of Melbourne to discuss his recent paper published in Biological Psychiatry. When we see changes in the brain in someone with psychosis, is that the disease itself, or a side effect of the medications we're prescribing to treat it? This question has been surprisingly difficult to answer, because almost everyone who develops psychosis is immediately started on antipsychotic medication, making it nearly impossible to distinguish what the illness does to the brain from what the drugs do. In this conversation, we explore how Dr. Chopra and his colleagues at Orygen, the University of Melbourne, and Monash University, addressed this question using a triple-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial in people experiencing their very first episode of psychosis who had never taken antipsychotic medication. Dr. Chopra walks us through the remarkable finding that patients on placebo showed widespread cortical thinning over 12 months while patients on antipsychotics did not, why the regional pattern of thinning may reflect the underlying neurobiology of psychosis, and how the spatial pattern of thinning aligned with normative distributions of specific neurotransmitter receptors. We also discuss the challenges of running a placebo-controlled trial in psychosis, why a null result in the antipsychotic group isn't the same as evidence of neuroprotection, and what the transdiagnostic nature of the sample means for generalizability. The conversation closes with a look at what these findings mean for how we think about the earliest brain changes in psychosis and the role of antipsychotic medication. Paper: Differential Effects of Illness and Antipsychotics on Cortical Thinning in First-Episode Psychosis: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2026.06.028 Follow Biological Psychiatry: Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science Instagram: @biologicalpsych LinkedIn: Biological Psychiatry Bluesky: Biological Psychiatry This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. The views expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, its family of journals, or its editors. © 2026 Society of Biological Psychiatry. All rights reserved, including those for text and data mining or use in AI systems.

  2. Sep 3

    Biological Fingerprints of Adversity

    In this episode of The Biological Psychiatry Podcast, Dr. Elvisha Dhamala sits down with Chase Antonacci from Stanford University to discuss his latest paper published in Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science. What if the kind of stress a child experiences matters just as much as the amount? Emerging research suggests that early life adversity accelerates biological aging, but whether neglect and trauma have the same or different patterns of wear and tear has remained unclear. In this conversation, we talk about a longitudinal study that followed 225 children across four assessment waves over approximately six years, tracking a comprehensive battery of biological aging markers including cellular health indicators, brain aging, pubertal timing, and metabolic measures. Antonacci explains the two distinct biological aging phenotypes they found: a deprivation phenotype and a threat phenotype. We discuss how mitochondrial DNA copy number moved in opposite directions across the two profiles, and why BMI emerged as a convergent signature across nearly all dimensions of stress. We also unpack the study's evidence for "developmental imprinting": stress-biomarker associations were strongest at the first assessment in late childhood and actually weakened over adolescence. Interestingly, only the threat phenotype predicted psychopathology six years later, raising important questions about why deprivation's clear biological signature might not translate into detectable mental health risk within the study's follow-up window. We close by discussing what these findings mean for the timing of clinical interventions, the promise and limitations of biological aging as a framework for understanding adversity's effects, and what clinicians, researchers, and families should take away from this work. Paper: Early Adversity Imprints Multisystem Biological Aging: A Longitudinal Study of Adversity Dimensions and Aging Phenotypes Across Adolescence DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsgos.2026.100782 Follow Biological Psychiatry: Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science Instagram: @biologicalpsych LinkedIn: Biological Psychiatry Bluesky: Biological Psychiatry This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. The views expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, its family of journals, or its editors. © 2026 Society of Biological Psychiatry. All rights reserved, including those for text and data mining or use in AI systems.

  3. Aug 20

    Trauma Exposure and the Visual Cortex

    In this episode of The Biological Psychiatry Podcast, Dr. Elvisha Dhamala sits down with Dr. Nathaniel Harnett from McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School to discuss his recent paper published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. When we think about the neurobiology of PTSD, regions like the amygdala and prefrontal cortex typically come to mind. But an emerging body of research points to the visual cortex as potentially important for understanding trauma-related outcomes. A critical question, however, has remained unanswered: are changes in visual cortex structure a consequence of PTSD itself, or of trauma exposure more broadly? In this conversation, we explore how the team addressed this question by comparing cortical thickness of early visual areas in recently trauma-exposed individuals and controls across two independent samples. Dr. Harnett explains why distinguishing trauma-related from PTSD-specific brain changes matters for biomarker development, and what it means that primary visual cortex was thicker after trauma exposure independent of PTSD symptom severity. We also discuss what the regional specificity of these findings tells us about how trauma acutely impacts the brain, and why the absence of pre-trauma imaging remains one of the field's greatest challenges. The conversation closes with a look at what these findings mean for understanding the earliest neurobiological impacts of trauma and identifying who may be most vulnerable to developing PTSD. Paper: Recent Trauma Exposure Is Associated With Greater Thickness of the Primary Visual Cortex: A Discovery and Replication Analysis DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2026.04.016 Follow Biological Psychiatry: Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science Instagram: @biologicalpsych LinkedIn: Biological Psychiatry Bluesky: Biological Psychiatry This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. The views expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, its family of journals, or its editors. © 2026 Society of Biological Psychiatry. All rights reserved, including those for text and data mining or use in AI systems.

  4. May 28

    White Matter Network Disruptions in Bipolar Disorder

    In this episode of The Biological Psychiatry Podcast, Dr. Elvisha Dhamala sits down with Dr. Leila Nabulsi from the University of Southern California to discuss her recent paper published in Biological Psychiatry. The brain doesn't work as a collection of isolated parts, it works as a network, with white matter pathways acting as the wires that connect regions into functional circuits. But understanding how those connections are altered in bipolar disorder has been difficult, largely because most studies have been too small or too variable in their methods to produce reliable answers. In this conversation, we explore how the ENIGMA Bipolar Disorder Working Group tackled this challenge by pooling diffusion MRI data from 16 sites around the world to map structural brain network disruptions in bipolar disorder. Dr. Nabulsi walks us through what it means to think of the brain as a network, why individuals with bipolar disorder showed reduced network efficiency and disrupted connectivity in limbic, fronto-limbic, and default mode circuits, and how clinical features like illness duration, psychosis history, and medication use relate to these network changes. We also discuss what these findings might mean for the everyday experiences of people living with bipolar disorder and where the field goes from here. Paper: Structural Brain Network Alterations in Relation to Treatment and Illness Severity in Bipolar Disorder DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2026.04.020 Follow Biological Psychiatry: Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science Instagram: @biologicalpsych LinkedIn: Biological Psychiatry Bluesky: Biological Psychiatry This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. The views expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, its family of journals, or its editors. © 2026 Society of Biological Psychiatry. All rights reserved, including those for text and data mining or use in AI systems.

  5. Apr 23

    Brain Development and Addictive Screen Use in Adolescents

    In this episode of The Biological Psychiatry Podcast, Dr. Elvisha Dhamala sits down with Dr. Omid Kardan from the University of Michigan to discuss his recent paper published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. Screen time concerns are everywhere, but it's not just how much time young people spend on screens, it's how they use them. In this conversation, we explore whether differences in brain development during childhood can predict addictive patterns of screen use in early adolescence. Using data from the ABCD Study, Dr. Kardan's team found that delayed cortical maturation at ages 9-10 predicted addictive screen use two years later, with videogaming showing the strongest association. We discuss what cortical maturation means, why reward processing told a different story, and what these findings mean for parents, clinicians, and policymakers. Paper: The roles of delayed cortical maturation and lower anticipatory reward activation in predicting addictive screen use in youth DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2026.03.012 Follow Biological Psychiatry: Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science Instagram: @biologicalpsych LinkedIn: Biological Psychiatry Bluesky: Biological Psychiatry This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. The views expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, its family of journals, or its editors. © 2026 Society of Biological Psychiatry. All rights reserved, including those for text and data mining or use in AI systems.

  6. Apr 23

    Prenatal Income Instability and the Parental Brain

    In this episode of The Biological Psychiatry Podcast, Dr. Elvisha Dhamala sits down with Dr. Pilyoung Kim from the University of Denver to discuss their recent paper published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. Pregnancy transforms the brain to prepare for parenthood, but what happens when financial instability disrupts that process? In this conversation, we explore how income losses during pregnancy dampen brain responses to infant cries in the postpartum period, while income gains strengthen neural bonding with one's own baby. We discuss what these findings mean for understanding the neurobiology of parenting, why income instability may matter more than poverty itself, and the implications for supporting families during this critical window. Paper: Income Instability During Pregnancy Prospectively Relates to Postpartum Brain Function for Parent–Infant Bonding DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2026.03.003 Follow Biological Psychiatry: Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science Instagram: @biologicalpsych LinkedIn: Biological Psychiatry Bluesky: Biological Psychiatry This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. The views expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, its family of journals, or its editors. © 2026 Society of Biological Psychiatry. All rights reserved, including those for text and data mining or use in AI systems.

  7. Apr 23

    Enriching Antipsychotic Clinical Trials with Speech Biomarkers

    In this episode of The Biological Psychiatry Podcast, Dr. Elvisha Dhamala sits down with Dr. Alex Cohen from Louisiana State University and Dr. Mark Opler from Clario to discuss their recent paper published in Biological Psychiatry. Psychiatric clinical trials have some of the highest failure rates in medicine. In this conversation, we explore how a simple, objective measure, the timing of a patient's speech, can be used to enrich clinical trial samples, nearly doubling drug-placebo effect sizes with half the sample. We discuss what speech latency reveals about schizophrenia symptoms, how this approach worked across 8 languages in a global Phase 3 trial, and what it means for the future of psychiatric drug development. Paper: A Single, Interpretable Vocal Biomarker for Enriching Antipsychotic Clinical Trials DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2025.11.025 Follow Biological Psychiatry: Biological Psychiatry Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science Instagram: @biologicalpsych LinkedIn: Biological Psychiatry Bluesky: Biological Psychiatry This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or professional advice. The views expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, its family of journals, or its editors. © 2026 Society of Biological Psychiatry. All rights reserved, including those for text and data mining or use in AI systems.

  • 7 Episodes

About

The Biological Psychiatry Podcast is the official podcast of the Biological Psychiatry family of journals. Hosted by Social Media Editor Elvisha Dhamala, each episode features in-depth conversations with researchers about their latest work on psychiatric disorders, brain science, and mental health. The Biological Psychiatry journals advance scientific research and education in fields investigating the nature, causes, mechanisms, and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, and behavior. This podcast makes the research accessible to both scientists and non-scientists. From innovative findings in neuroimaging and genetics to clinical trials and translational research, we explore the discoveries, implications, and future directions shaping the field of biological psychiatry.

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