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Research Team at UCLA
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Andrew F. Leuchter, M.D., leads the research team investigating
placebo effects at the NPI.
Dr. Leuchter is the Daniel X. Freedman Professor and Vice Chair of the
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences,
UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital. In his role as Vice Chair
Dr. Leuchter oversees teaching, clinical care, and
clinical research of patients with depression, psychosis,
anxiety, and other mental illnesses throughout UCLA Medical Center.
He also serves as Chief of Staff for the UCLA Neuropsychiatric
Hospital, and Director of Continuing Education for the UCLA
Neuropsychiatric Institute.
Dr. Leuchter received his undergraduate degree from Stanford
University, and his medical degree from the Baylor College of
Medicine. He completed his residency at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric
Institute, and a Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship in the UCLA
Department of Medicine.
Dr. Leuchter's clinical expertise is in the treatment of depression,
with a special focus on treatment-resistant and late-life depression.
Using brain imaging techniques such as quantitative
electroencephalography (QEEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and
positron emission tomography (PET), Dr. Leuchter examines brain
function to predict which treatments are most likely to benefit
individual patients. His research program combines clinical trials
with neurophysiologic and brain imaging studies to inform clinical
practice in the treatment of depression.
Dr. Leuchter is Board Certified in Psychiatry, has Added
Qualifications in Geriatric Psychiatry and is Board Certified in
Electroencephalography. He is the author of numerous articles and
chapters on the assessment and treatment of depression, dementia and
other major mental illnesses, and is the author of two patents for
new methods to analyze brain electrical activity.
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Ian A. Cook, M.D. is co-Investigator with Dr. Leuchter of the research team
investigating placebo effects at UCLA.
Dr. Cook is a Research Scientist at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric
Institute, the founding Director of the UCLA NPI Academic Information
Technology Core, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the David Geffen
School of Medicine at UCLA He was honored by the NIH as an NCDEU New Investigator in 1997 and
received two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards to support his early-career research
in depression and neurophysiology. He was the recipient of a
Career Development Award from the NIMH to study factors
leading to the side effects of psychoactive medications, and continues with
NIMH funding as Principal Investigator for an R01 collaborative project joining UCLA/NPI and
Massachusetts General Hospital to study "Response Variability in Treatment Resistant
Depression." He has spoken internationally and published peer-reviewed research on
depression and brain function.
Dr. Cook's clinical focus is on the treatment of mood and cognitive disorders.
His research projects use measures of brain structure (MRI) and of
brain function (EEG, fMRI, PET) to learn more about how brain factors
influence the particular symptoms and side effects that patients experience and
their response to treatment. His publication list is online here.
Dr. Cook received his bachelors degree with high honors from
Princeton University and his medical degree from the Yale University
School of Medicine. He completed his psychiatry residency training at
UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute, where he also was an NIMH-funded
research fellow. Since joining the faculty, he has been honored three times
with departmental teaching awards. He led the NPI's Internet
Initiative to use innovations in information technology to extend the
reach of educational programs, and is the architect of the online CME
programs at the Neuropsychiatric Institute. He holds four patents on
biomedical devices and methods.
Dr. Cook serves on the Executive Committee on Practice
Guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association,
and leads their work in electronic dissemination of
evidence-based guidelines in psychiatry. He is also a member of the
Executive Board of the West Coast College of Biological Psychiatry,
where he serves as Communications Chair.
A board-certified Psychiatrist, he is
an examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. His
biography is profiled in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the
World.
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Aimee M. Hunter, Ph.D. is a research
psychologist on the placebo investigative team at UCLA. Dr. Hunter
received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Psychology
from UCLA. Her graduate work focused on behavioral neuro-pharmacology
in the learned helplessness paradigm, an expectation-related
model of depression. More recently, Dr. Hunter has turned to
explore the roles of expectation and brain changes during brief
placebo treatment as they relate to antidepressant side effects
and clinical outcome. She currently holds a Psychobiology Research
Fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
Dr. Hunter was awarded a 2004 New Investigator Award from the
NIMH New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit (NCDEU) for her work examining
brain changes during placebo lead-in and treatment outcomes in
clinical trials for major depression. |
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Melinda
L. Morgan, Ph.D., MSW, is an assistant professor in the department
of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric
Institute and Hospital. As a member of the research team investigating
placebo effects, her interests are focused on physiologic and
psychosocial predictors of placebo response in depression. She
has an overarching interest in women’s mental health across
the life span. Her recent work focuses on intervention research
in depression in women during the transition to menopause. She
has received two NARSAD Young Investigator’s Awards in
addition to the NCDEU New Investigator’s Award in 2003 to support
her research in perimenopausal depression and estrogen augmentation
of antidepressant medication. She was an NIMH postdoctoral fellow
and a geriatric research scholar at the NIMH Summer Research
Institute. During graduate school at UCLA she studied cognitive
and hormonal functioning in premenstrual dysphoric disorder.
Currently she is expanding her research to study changes in neuroactive
steroids during menopause in women being treated with medication
versus placebo. |
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