Department of Psychiatry Research and Clinical Trials

The Department of Psychiatry is committed to the advancement of the practice of psychiatry with a focused emphasis on new research aimed at further understanding of psychiatric disorders and their optimal treatment. Research projects span animal studies, neuroimaging, innovative effectiveness trials and health service studies.

We also conduct clinical trials to study the effectiveness of a treatment, medication, experimental drug, or device.

Members of the Department work within the Neuroscience Center at Dartmouth, a site of cutting-edge translational neuroscience research, as well as within the Norris Cotton Cancer Care Pavilion Lebanon, the Dartmouth SYNERGY Clinical and Translational Research Institute, and the Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

Currently, members of our Department are conducting various research grants from federal agencies, state agencies, foundations, and industry.

The areas of study include:

  • ADHD
  • Alzheimer's Disease
  • Autism
  • Depression
  • Multiple sclerosis
  • PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)
  • Schizophrenia (and other serious mental illness)
  • Substance use
  • Traumatic brain injury

Research groups

  • Brain Research Network: A multidisciplinary group of scientists with expertise in clinical neuroscience, neuropsychology, psychiatry, brain imaging, research design, and statistics
  • Laboratory of Translational Neuropsychopharmacology: This research group gains a better systems-neuroscience understanding of severe mental illness and substance use disorders in order to develop novel therapeutic interventions and personalizes the implementation of existing treatments to improve patients' lives.
  • Neuroscience Center at Dartmouth: An interdisciplinary group whose mission is to foster collaborative and interactive research and education in the neurosciences
  • PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) Research Group: A group that develops models, techniques, and tools to help survivors who suffer from trauma-related disorders

Clinical trials

We have many active trials that are enrolling patients across the system. A clinical trial/study is research in which people can participate and is one of the final steps in the process to look for better ways to prevent, diagnose, or treat your condition. The purpose of a clinical trial/study is to research the effectiveness of a treatment, medication, experimental drug, or device. Many of the standard treatments that patients receive today were developed based on the results of previous clinical trials.

View the list of psychiatry clinical trials with which this program is currently involved. Consider joining a trial today. You could help change the future of medicine.