Cover of the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience featuring a glowing brain scan highlighting neural pathways in red and white.

Our most read 2025 article explores AI-generated teaching signals in psychiatry, helping clinicians sharpen clinical sense-making. Read it now ▶️ https://ow.ly/I57u50XWp65

👥 Lena Palaniyappan, Priyadharshini Sabesan

#BestofCSP

Screen shot from webpage showing Dr. Palaniyappan with title "A Canadian scientist is shaking up the way we think about mental illness"

The Mach-Gaensslen Foundation of Canada is happy to announce the 2025 winner of the Royal-Mach-Gaensslen Prize for Mental Health Research. This year's recipient is Dr. Lena Palaniyappan with the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal.
www.theroyal.ca/news/dr-lena...

Kick off the new year with the Neurogenesis Speaker Series! 🎤🧠

Join Manuela Ferrari & @lenapl.bsky.social at @theneuro.bsky.social on Jan. 21, 2026, for two exciting talks on their research in mental health, followed by a meet-and-greet reception. 🧀

🫵 Register now: mcgill.ca/x/5kz

@mcgill.ca

Quantitative semiology: harnessing AI-generated teaching signals in psychiatry

Quantitative semiology: harnessing AI-generated teaching signals in psychiatry cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/...

New review paper on theory of mind/mentalizing and spontaneous speech/language. Led by Chaimaa El Mouslih, and co-authored with @vegashodgins.bsky.social and @lenapl.bsky.social

www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/15...

Taking a look at your speech: identifying diagnostic status and negative symptoms of psychosis using convolutional neural networks - NPP—Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience Short snippets of everyday speech hold medical clues. Using computer vision techniques on sound pictures (“spectrograms”) from short speech fragments, researchers trained a neural network on recording...

Check out this 🆕 paper form @lenapl.bsky.social et al showing that speech spectrograms can track negative symptom severity in schizophrenia

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Relationship between grammar and schizophrenia: a systematic review and meta-analysis - Communications Medicine Elleuch et al, perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the association between grammatical impairments and schizophrenia. Large effect size deficits in grammatical comprehension and production occur in this illness, highlighting the need for targeted interventions to address language use in people with psychotic disorders.

🚨 NEW RESEARCH! ⚕️ 🩺 🧠

Elleuch et al. explore the association of grammatical challenges in people with Schizophrenia in a systematic review and meta-analysis of 45 studies.

https://bit.ly/4kZnq66

@lenapl.bsky.social

Automated speech and language markers of longitudinal changes in psychosis symptoms - NPP—Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience We used acoustic analysis and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to evaluate speech data from 66 individuals with psychosis, over time. The study identified specific language features that correlate wi...

One of the largest longitudinal study of computational speech and language features and psychosis from @stanglab.bsky.social Tang & colleagues! www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Neurite Density and Kurtosis in the Gray Matter of People with Early Schizophrenia Classical models of diffusion weighted imaging, especially diffusion tensor imaging, are unsuited for application to the cortical gray matter, given t…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Distinct structural deficits in treatment-resistant schizophrenia and their putative neurotransmitter basis: a source-based morphometry analysis - Neuropsychopharmacology Neuropsychopharmacology - Distinct structural deficits in treatment-resistant schizophrenia and their putative neurotransmitter basis: a source-based morphometry analysis

#ThisWeekInNPP

This study identified a prefrontal-limbic structural covariance network with ⬇️ gray matter volume specific to treatment-resistant schizophrenia, linked to serotonergic, glutamatergic, histaminergic, & opioid receptor distributions 🧠

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Distinct structural deficits in treatment-resistant schizophrenia and their putative neurotransmitter basis: a source-based morphometry analysis - Neuropsychopharmacology Neuropsychopharmacology - Distinct structural deficits in treatment-resistant schizophrenia and their putative neurotransmitter basis: a source-based morphometry analysis

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

People with schizophrenia that is resistant to treatment may have specific prefrontal-limbic brain deficits linked to non-dopaminergic neurotransmitter systems—highlighting the need for therapies beyond antipsychotics. #schizophrenia #neuroscience #mentalhealth

Real root cause medicine is based on science, not wellness disinformation. RFK Jr, Marty Makary, and MAHA allies are lying to you. Biomedical research is BASED ON identifying and treating underlying causes of illness.

Very, very obviously we need to emphasize science-informed preventative strategies.

Public health experts – myself included – have focused on this for decades!

But phrase "root causes" long ago morphed into a red flag for bunk. 🚩

news.immunologic.org/p/real-root-... @drandrealove.bsky.social‬👇

Understanding Psychiatric Disorders Through Language: $9.8M from The Wellcome Trust for DIALOG Initiative - The Douglas Research Centre Montreal, April 23, 2025   The Douglas Mental Health University Institute is proud to announce that the Wellcome Trust has awarded $9.8 million to Dr. Lena Palaniyappan in support of ... Read more

Congratulations to @lenapl.bsky.social, @sylvainbaillet.bsky.social and the whole team on the boost from the @wellcometrust.bsky.social for the DIALOG initiative douglas.research.mcgill.ca/news/underst...

Funded Research - PSI Foundation List of projects funded by PSI Foundation.

Drs. Peter Van Dyken and Lena Palaniyappan (@lenapl.bsky.social) (‪@schulichmeddent.bsky.social‬)'s research trainee study on graph theory and U-fibre network in people with #Schizophrenia: www.psifoundation.org/funded-resea... #SchizophreniaResearch

Excellent synergy here, looking forward to it @sylvainbaillet.bsky.social !

Western University is seeking applications for Canada Excellence Research Chairs. Please reach out if you are interested in Theme 2: Neuroscience. Western has extraordinary strengths in cognitive, molecular and systems neuroscience across species (rodents, NHPs, humans) uwo.ca/research/cer...

It will be interesting to see CPC vote density mapped on measles outbreaks.

Researchers are a group that can take concrete steps to reduce the environmental footprint associated with their activities while continuing to improve human health outcomes through their research. Editorial: Greening the lab: fighting climate change to enhance mental health. Albert et al. J Psychiatry Neurosci April 23, 2025 50 (2) E142-E144; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/jpn.250040

Greening the lab:
Researchers are a group that can take concrete steps to reduce the environmental footprint associated with their activities.
➡️
www.jpn.ca/lookup/doi/1...

Topiramate is effective in treating compulsive behaviours associated with PWS, but requires monitoring for hyperammonemia and psychiatric comorbidities. Psychopharmacology for the Clinician: Effectiveness of topiramate in the treatment of behavioural disorders in Prader–Willi syndrome. Louveau et al. J Psychiatry Neurosci April 23, 2025 50 (2) E145-E146; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/jpn.240107

Topiramate for treatment of behavioural disorders in Prader–Willi syndrome:
Topiramate is effective in treating compulsive behaviours associated with PWS, but requires monitoring.
➡️
www.jpn.ca/lookup/doi/1...

Substance-Induced vs Primary Psychosis: Are They Different? Are substance-induced psychosis and primary psychosis fundamentally different? And if they are, does it matter?

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...

📣 We are proud to announce that the Wellcome Trust has awarded Dr. Palaniyappan!

📣 Nous sommes fiers d’annoncer l'obtention d'une subvention de la Fondation Wellcome Trust à Dr Palaniyappan pour soutenir le projet DIALOG!

More infos / plus d'infos :
douglas.research.mcgill.ca/news/underst...

Convergence of Cannabis and Psychosis on the Dopamine System This cohort study investigates the association between cannabis and the midbrain dopamine pathway involved in psychosis.

We show cannabis use disorder is associated with higher midbrain neuromelanin, where such an increase is associated with #psychosis severity. The higher the use, the greater the putative dopamine turnover.
Led by Jessica Ahrens @healthsciences.mcgill.ca IPN

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007...

Disorganisation and depression: a re-examination of how we think and speak when depressed - European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience Disorganised thinking in severe mental illness seriously cripples social functions. Historically, the study of disorganisation has primarily concentrated on schizophrenia, utilizing tools designed to ...

When we are depressed, we not only have negative thoughts but also experience a muddled, disorganized thinking process. We propose some steps to make progress in understanding and reducing the burden of disorganization in #Depression
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

ceymh-cesmj.ca/psychosis-my...

Speaking of yourself: A meta-analysis of 80 years of research on pronoun use in schizophrenia People with schizophrenia experience significant language disturbances that profoundly affect their everyday social interactions. Given its relevance …

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We see a prominent excess of first-person pronouns in #schizophrenia, with no excessive inter-individual variability. While not a direct comparison, this effect (d=0.89) is >> than striatal dopamine excess or prefrontal glutamate reduction reported to date.

Dog person On what the RCMP allegedly did to thousands of sled dogs

Dog person open.substack.com/pub/lenapl/p...
#poetry

please add me, thanks!

Don't give the same speech this year too. Tired of listening to it nine times in a row.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...