Pilot Awards
Pilot awards offer early- and mid-stage career faculty an opportunity to collect key pilot data—with a particular focus on innovation—with the goal of identifying the underpinnings of depression and anxiety, and developing new targets for treatment both for individual patients and on a public health scale. These preliminary data, in turn, are utilized to pursue additional funding.
The below pilot awards have been made possible by the generosity of the Saks Fifth Avenue Foundation, whose mission is to make mental health a priority in every community.
2025 Depression Center Pilot Awards
Isaac Treves, PhD
- Identifying Repetitive Negative Thinking in Naturalistic Adolescent Language: Applications for Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors
Repetitive negative thinking (RNT), which is related to rumination, shows robust relationships with depressive symptoms, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation. Given RNT is a state that fluctuates with stress and life events, it is important to develop sensitive tools that can measure RNT in real-world contexts. In this project, we will use novel transformer models to identify linguistic features of RNT in passive natural language collected through adolescent smartphones.
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Milenna van Dijk, PhD
- Do Genetic Profiles that Promote Resilience to Stress Protect Against Risk for Adolescent Suicidality After Early Adversity Exposure?
Although some youth exposed to adversity develop suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs), others do not, suggesting underlying neurobiological and genetic factors that promote resilience. New preclinical studies show that antidepressants reverse stress-induced behavioral impairments, by altering gene expression in the hippocampus. In this project, we will extract gene networks involved in inducing resilience to stress to test whether higher innate expression of these resilience-related genes in the hippocampus enhances stress resilience in humans, reducing STB risk.
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2024 Depression Center Pilot Awards
Carter Funkhouser, PhD
- Increasing the Scalability and Accessibility of Treatment for Youth Depression
There are effective treatments for depression, but most depressed youth do not receive them because they prefer to self-manage their symptoms, cannot access treatment, or perceive treatment to be too time-consuming or inconvenient. Single-session interventions (SSIs) address these critical limitations by delivering an entire intervention in a single encounter and have shown promise for engaging mechanisms of action and ameliorating depression in youth. This project partners with Mental Health America, a nonprofit advocacy organization that screens approximately 200,000 youth for depression, to adapt a gold standard treatment for youth depression into a brief, web-based SSI.
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Anton Schulmann, PhD
- Multi-omic Dissection of Thalamic Cell Types in Major Depressive Disorder
Genome-wide association studies have implicated many genetic variants in major depressive disorder (MDD), but the mechanism through which these variants act on the brain are poorly understood. Neuroimaging studies in MDD consistently show reduced thalamic volumes and changes in thalamocortical connectivity, particularly among patients with suicide attempt. This project will apply multi-omic methods (i.e., single-nucleus RNA-seq and single-nucleus ATAC-seq) to post-mortem thalamus tissue from MDD cases and matched controls to advance our understanding of MDD neurobiology at the cellular and molecular level.
2023 Depression Center Pilot Awards
Elizabeth Bartlett, PhD
- The Role of the Kappa Opioid Receptor in Ketamine's Attenuation of Suicidal Thoughts in Major Depression
Intravenous ketamine pharmacotherapy rapidly reduces suicidal ideation in acutely suicidal patients with MDD. In rodents, activation of the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) has been shown to mediate the link between stress and depression and therefore may play a role in ketamine’s rapid antidepressant and suicidal ideation reduction effects. This project aims to investigate changes in stress and KOR occupancy following an intravenous dose of ketamine in relation to suicidal ideation and depressed mood in patients with MDD.
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Paul Bloom, PhD
- Downregulating Self-Referential Processing Among Depressed Adolescents Using Mindfulness-Based Real-Time fMRI Neurofeedback
Mindfulness-based treatments show promise for reducing rumination symptoms; however, in depressed adolescents, rumination may draw attention to negative self-perceptions and away from the current moment, thus impeding the beneficial effects of mindfulness. Mindfulness-based fMRI real-time neurofeedback (mbNF) offers moment-by-moment feedback on brain activation with the aim downregulating mind-wandering and rumination. This project leverages an existing fMRI mbNF protocol that will examine pre- and post-mbNF neural activity associated with self-referential processing.
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Kyo Iigaya, PhD
- Developing a Computational Model for Reward Processing in Depressed Adults
Anticipatory anhedonia, characterized by the inability to derive pleasure from anticipating rewards, is a characteristic of depression. We have recently developed a new computational and experimental framework for directly probing reward anticipation, finding that in the general population, coupling between hippocampus and dopaminergic midbrain underlies the anticipated value of a task. This proposal utilizes this novel framework in depressed adults to examine whether altered coupling between the hippocampus and dopaminergic midbrain underlies anticipatory anhedonia.
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2022 Depression Center Pilot Awards
Doron Amsalem, MD
- Reducing Self-Stigma and Increasing Treatment-Seeking Intentions Among Youth with Depressive Symptoms: A Mixed-Methods Study
Young people with depressive symptoms, especially those of underserved minority groups, avoid treatments due to stigma and discrimination. Although brief social-contact interventions effectively reduce public stigma by identifying with the protagonist, no studies have examined whether tailoring the intervention to key demographic characteristics further improves stigma reduction and treatment-seeking. This proposal tests whether matching the brief video content/protagonist to viewers' race/ethnicity enhances the stigma reduction and treatment-seeking in depression.
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Ronit Kishon, PhD
- Enhancement and Long-Term Efficacy of Psilocybin by Follow-Up Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Treatment Resistance Depression.
remission. Acute psychedelic administration results in a range of subjective experiences including increased openness, connectedness, and self-knowledge – a cognitive process that underlies effective emotion regulation. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) may enhance these subjective experiences thereby reducing depressive symptoms. This feasibility study will combine one administration of psilocybin with 12 weeks of CBT to evaluate the feasibility, safety, and psychological constructs that underlie changes in depression.
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Diana Rodriguez-Moreno, PhD
- Neuroeconomic Approach to Risk Behavior in Adolescents with Depression
Approximately two-thirds of youth with major depressive disorder have comorbid substance use and other disorders that involve risky decision making. Risky choices can occur when the probability of an outcome is either expected or ambiguous. This study will measure differences in neural activation between depressed and non-depressed adolescents under expected risk and ambiguous conditions.
Akina Umemoto, PhD
- Probing Anticipatory and Consummatory Reward Processes in Adolescent Depression
The peak onset of major depressive disorder (MDD) occurs during adolescence. Aberrant reward processing is implicated in MDD, but neurotransmitter alterations underlying different stages of reward processing are not well-characterized. This multimodal study will measure noradrenergic and dopaminergic functioning during anticipatory and consummatory reward stages in depressed and healthy controls, which may clarify novel neuromodulatory clinical targets that may improve treatment outcomes in MDD.
2021 Depression Center Pilot Awards
Sarah Canetta, PhD
- Understanding the Behavioral Efficacy of Tianeptine in a Model of SSRI Resistance
Although selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are frontline treatments for depression, they are ineffective in approximately 40% of patients. This project will use a translational model of SSRI resistance, in which the atypical antidepressant tianeptine remains effective, to define the neurophysiological and behavioral mechanisms underlying different antidepressant pharmacotherapies, as well as improve our understanding of why they can be differentially effective in certain individuals.
Alexander Harris, MD, PhD
- Enhancing Resilience with Behaviorally Driven Reward Circuit Stimulation
The rising rates of depression in the United States highlight the need for interventions that will build resilience. Reward seeking deficits at baseline predicts the future development of depression. This project will use behaviorally driven stimulation of reward circuitry to artificially enhance baseline reward circuit responses to rewards. We anticipate that this powerful approach will confer resilience and pave the way for future circuit-based treatments.
Bin Xu, PhD
- Identify the Effects of Ketamine on Neural Cell Type Specific Signaling Pathways
Although there are abundant clinical studies confirm that ketamine has a remarkable rapid-onset antidepressant effect, the mechanism of action of ketamine's rapid antidepressant effect is still largely unknown. With the recent development in stem cell base tissue engineering, the human induced pluripotent stem cell-based brain organoid model is providing sufficient diversity in cell types and projections to mimic the in vivo human brain tissue context for modeling the response of different cell types to ketamine exposure. Therefore, this project proposes to identify key pathways and regulators in each cell type affected by ketamine using brain organoid model combining with single cell transcriptome analysis, genome wide epigenetic analysis, and proteomics.
2020 Depression Center Pilot Awards
Maura Boldrini, MD, PhD
- Brain Single Nuclei Transcriptomic Biosignatures of Major Depression and Antidepressant Action
The project aims to test which genes have altered expression in major depressive disorder and which ones are normalized in antidepressant-treated depression. Ultimately, genes that are not modulated by the currently available antidepressants could become new treatment targets.
Claudia Lugo-Candelas, PhD
- Clarifying Neural Circuity related to Inhibitory Control in Adolescent Suicide Attempters
Presently, the neural correlates of adolescent suicide are unclear. The project will use resting state MRI to test whether neural circuitry related to inhibitory control differences suicide ideators versus suicide attempters.
Elizabeth Sublette, MD, PhD
- Linking the Microbiome to Inflammation and Major Depression
Using deep metagenomics, the study investigates both gut and saliva microbiome to study microbial relationships across body sites as well as the relative strengths of their relationships to peripheral and central inflammatory indices. The oral microbiome is understudied with respect to the central nervous system; associations have been reported with migraines, but we are not aware of studies in depression.
Ardesheer Talati, PhD
- Early Life Vulnerability to Depression: Establishing a 4th Generation Cohort from a Multigenerational Family Study of Depression
This pilot project aims to characterize a 4th generation of offspring from an ongoing, richly characterized multigenerational study of depression, focusing on early childhood environment and proinflammatory markers in these at-risk offspring while they are still young, before onset of psychopathology.
2019 Depression Center Pilot Awards
Christoph Anacker, PhD
- Identifying Novel Diagnostic Biomarkers of Depression Risk
The goal of this study is to investigate neural circuit dysfunction and blood-based biomarkers for depression risk in humans with a family history of depression. In collaboration with Dr. Myrna Weissman, we are utilizing a 4-generation family cohort of high risk for depression to identify neural circuit dysfunctions and molecular abnormalities that may precede depression in at-risk individuals, to better understand the pathogenesis of depression and to identify potential biomarkers for early diagnosis. We are combining this clinical approach with rodent mouse models in which we can functionally manipulate the same neural circuits that we identify in humans to test their causal role for brain function and behavior.
Randy P. Auerbach, PhD
- Improving the Short-term Prediction of Suicidal Behavior in Mood Disorders
Presently, our ability to predict the emergence of suicidal behaviors is limited. The pilot project seeks to leverage smartphone technology to clarify real-time markers—through experience sampling and passive sensor digital phenotypes—to predict suicidal behaviors among high-risk adults with a history of mood disorders.
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Bradley Miller, MD, PhD
- A Pilot Study of a Novel Major Depression Associated Mutation: Bridging the Gap from Mutation to Behavior
Dr. Miller and his research team discovered a human mutation in an orphan GPCR strongly associated with major depression and generated a mouse model of the mutation that shows enhanced sensitivity to stress. The pilot study aims to determine how the mutation alters brain activity in vivo during emotional behaviors.
