
Basant K PradhanCooper University Hospital · Psychiatry
Basant K Pradhan
M.D.
Vice Chief & Director: Brain Stimulation, Psychedelics & Mindfulness (NIIP) Fellowship, Cooper University Hospital, NJ
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97
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Introduction
Evidence Based
Mindfulness; Brain Mapping; Targeted Neuromodulation; Advanced Psychopharmacology; Child Psychiatry
Additional affiliations
July 2001 - September 2006
September 2015 - present
July 2015 - present
Publications
Publications (97)
Background:
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) results in discomfort in youth. This study proposes that yoga and mindfulness will decrease anxiety and improve the quality of life in IBS youth.
Primary objective and intervention:
To measure the impact of a virtual 6-week Standardized Yoga and Meditation Program for Stress Reduction (SYMPro-SR) progra...
Huntington’s disease (HD) is increasingly recognized for diverse pathology outside of the nervous system. To describe the biology of HD in relation to functional progression, we previously analyzed the plasma and CSF metabolome in a cross-sectional study of participants who had various degrees of functional impairment. Here, we carried out an explo...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects ~ 6% of adolescents and adults in the US. Increased N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor activation leads to heightened intrusive memories and is associated with an increased risk of developing PTSD. Ketamine is an NMDA antagonist with ultra-rapid therapeutic action for treatment-resistant depression an...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) appeared in early 2019 and swiftly became a pandemic causing extensive morbidity and mortality. Many studies have recognized the neuropathological changes in the brain and hypothesized the possible link with cognitive dysfunction, neurops...
Psychotherapies for the youth have resulted from the confluence of 3 major disciplines: adult psychology and psychiatry, developmental neurology and pediatrics, and developmental psychology and ethology. Since their humble origins in the psychoanalytically oriented play therapy and the related theories in the pre-War Germany, over more than a centu...
Social psychiatry is a discipline that focuses on the social dimension of mental health, mental illness, and mental healthcare. It uses concepts and methods of biological and social sciences, including sociology, psychology, and anthropology, to investigate social factors influencing and relevant to occurrence, expression, course, and care of menta...
Social psychiatry is a discipline that focuses on the social dimension of mental health, mental illness, and mental healthcare. It uses concepts and methods of biological and social sciences, including sociology, psychology, and anthropology, to investigate social factors influencing and relevant to occurrence, expression, course, and care of menta...
BACKGROUND: Emerging literature supports the association between acute COVID-19 infection and neuropsychiatric complications. The aim of this article is to review the evidence for catatonia as a potential neuropsychiatric sequela of COVID-19 infection.
METHODS: PubMed was searched using the terms catatonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome corona...
To our knowledge, this is the first case report highlighting the use of amantadine in benzodiazepine-resistant catatonia associated with COVID-19 infection. The combination of amantadine and lorazepam was safe, effective, and tolerable and may be a useful approach in managing COVID-19–associated catatonia resistant to benzodiazepines. As the pandem...
Parvalbumin (PV) interneurons are present in multiple brain regions and produce complex influences on brain functioning. An increasing number of research findings indicate that the function of these interneurons is more complex than solely to inhibit pyramidal neurons in the cortex. They generate feedback and feedforward inhibition of cortical neur...
Purpose of Review
While ketamine’s analgesia has mostly been attributed to antagonism of N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors, evidence suggests multiple other pathways are involved in its antidepressant and possibly analgesic activity. These mechanisms and ketamine’s role in the nociplastic pain paradigm are discussed. Animal studies demonstrating ketam...
Mind-Body Therapies (MBTs), such as mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and tai-chi, are said to improve quality of life by contributing to positive thinking and reducing overall distress. MBTs not only play a role in reducing stress and anxiety, but they are also found to epigenetically affect genes and other areas in our genomes that are implicated in...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Inherited pseudocholinesterase deficiency refers to an uncommon defect in the butyrylcholinesterase enzyme which can result in prolonged muscle paralysis due to delayed breakdown of choline ester paralytic anaesthetic agents. We describe a 25-year-old woman receiving electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for treatment of depression in whom motor function...
Compulsivity and loss of behavioral control represent core symptoms in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), substance use disorder (SUD), and internet gaming disorder (IGD). Despite elaborated animal models suggesting that compulsivity is mediated by cortico‐striatal circuits and a growing number of neuroimaging case–control studies, common neurofu...
It is challenging to treat symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), comorbid psychiatric disorders and ASD-associated symptoms. Some of the commonly used medications to treat these can, and frequently do have serious adverse side effects. Therefore, it is important to identify medications that are effective and with fewer side effects and negati...
Opioid addiction in the United States currently presents a national crisis despite availability of different treatments. Prior findings suggest that both repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and subanesthetic dose of ketamine are efficacious in patients with opioid use disorders (OUD) when administered in isolation. However, their th...
Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a progressive, fatal neurodegenerative condition. While generally considered for its devastating neurological phenotype, disturbances in other organ systems and metabolic pathways outside the brain have attracted attention for possible relevance to HD pathology, potential as therapeutic targets, or use as biomarkers of...
Insomnia is the most frequently reported sleep disorder and may manifest as early morning awakening, or difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. While preliminary data exist regarding the use of meditation-based interventions for individuals suffering from chronic sleep disturbances, data on standardized treatment models using yoga and meditati...
Background
Compulsivity and loss of behavioral control represent core symptoms in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), substance use disorder (SUD), and internet gaming disorder (IGD). Despite animal models suggesting compulsivity mediated by cortico-striatal circuits and several neuroimaging case-control studies positing common/distinct neurofunct...
Securing a residency position has become increasingly competitive, thereby making the interview crucial in matching successfully. In this commentary, what I consider “Ten Commandments” of a successful interview are elaborated. Although this is geared to those applying in dermatology, the principles are applicable for any medical student applying fo...
Recent literature suggests that deeply ingrained traumatic memories (TMs) lay at the core of the psychopathologies in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic psychosis, and treatment resistant depression (TRD), especially in the settings of trauma. TMs influence the formation, maintenance, and expression of the key symptoms in trauma, such...
Childhood adversity and trauma are increasingly being recognized as a common occurrence, and the widespread use of social media is only likely to increase the risk of this vicarious trauma. Childhood trauma, in particular, can lead to several psychiatric conditions and contributes to treatment resistance. Trauma memories have a role in the etiopath...
Traumatic memories are the critical factors in maintaining the symptoms of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), treatment resistant depression (TRD), and traumatic psychosis but current treatment strategies don’t address them adequately. Current trauma therapies are based on memory extinction mechanisms which have important limitations in...
Psychotherapeutic process at its core rests on developing a deep emotional connection or therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the client. This emotional connection helps the client to feel safe and confident to be able to work through the intrapsychic conflicts, the unresolved anxiety, and trauma in life. The current system of care for tr...
When it comes to the experience of trauma or mindfulness practice, no two people are exactly alike. In any psychotherapy, especially in trauma-focused therapy or mindfulness therapy, it is important not to follow the “one-size-fits-all” approach. It is important to customize the therapeutic interventions based on the client’s biopsychosocial profil...
The ultimate impact of any new treatment modality can be gauged by not only its efficacy in the controlled situations but also by the feasibility parameters such as the accessibility and the ease with which it can be introduced into the real-world situations of its clients. There is about a 15-year lag between academic demonstration of efficacy of...
Culture influences every aspect of an individual’s experience including the trauma experience. Not only culture provides the language and the “matrix” to metabolize the trauma experience; it also influences an individual’s resilience and recovery: community support and a strong cultural identity are some of the important determinants of its outcome...
There is growing interest in non-invasive brain stimulation as a novel treatment option for substance use disorders (SUDs). Recent momentum stems from a foundation of preclinical neuroscience research demonstrating causal and associative links between neural circuit activity and drug consuming behavior, as well as recent FDA-approval of non-invasiv...
TIMBER psychotherapy is a novel, translational and biomarker informed, mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy approach that addresses some of the current treatment gaps for PTSD, depression and traumatic psychosis. This treatment manual offers practitioners and patients alike a step-by-step guide to TIMBER (acronym for Trauma Interventions...
Sociality in primates is determined by the social brain and is the outcome of an intricate and multi‐dimensional relationship between the brain size, the richness as well as the selectivity of the neural networks and the behavioral complexities emanating from the bonded relationships that underpin the social coalitions. Accumulating data from the n...
Importance: Current pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment strategies for treatment resistant depression (TRD) are limited in effectiveness; so, new interventions are direly needed. Both transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) are evidence based treatments for TRD with minimal side effects. Co...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a chronic and debilitating condition that is often refractory to standard frontline antidepressant therapy. A promising new approach to PTSD therapy is administration of a single sub-anesthetic dose of (R,S)-ketamine (Ket). The treatment produces rapid and significant therapeutic response, which lasts for on...
Background:
Addiction and related disorders are devastating with their tremendous social, psychological, and physical consequences for which development of optimally effective treatments are long overdue. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is relatively safe and is becoming an emerging therapeutic tool for these conditions.
Metho...
One may agree that under-treated pain is an epidemic and over-treated pain is a nightmare for clinicians. It is a major public health problem. Chronic pain in the United States has a national economic cost of approximately $600 billion per year [57]; pain costs society $2000 per year for every individual living in the United States [113]. Chronic p...
Background and objectives: Trauma memories lay at the core in etiopathogenesis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Using pharmacological and cognitive behavioral treatments that specifically target trauma memories can improve the outcome. Ketamine has been shown to rapidly improve symptoms in PTSD and comorbid depression, but unfortunately th...
A 19-year-old Hispanic male with past psychiatric history of illicit drug use was brought by his mother to the emergency room of a tertiary care hospital with altered mental status. According to patient’s mother his paranoid symptoms consisted of increased suspiciousness towards his friends and other family members, but were not to the extent for h...
By end of this talk, participants will be able to:
➢Summarize basic concepts about complex trauma & traumatic psychosis
➢Describe two mechanisms (memory extinction & memory reconsolidation) which influence storage & expression of trauma memories in PTSD & traumatic psychosis
➢Summarize the steps involved in TIMBER (Trauma Interventions using Mindfu...
By end of this talk, participants will be able to:
1-Summarize basic concepts about pathogenic role of learning & memory in addictive disorders
2-Describe two mechanisms (memory extinction & memory reconsolidation) which influence storage & expression of drug related memories
3-Summarize the steps involved in MEMBER-AM therapy
4-Apply concepts of...
Psychosis (etymology: Gk. psyche + osis, condition) as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (http:// www. merriam-webster. com/ dictionary/ psychosis) is a mental and behavioral disorder due to fundamental derangement of the mind (as in schizophrenia) and is characterized by defective or lost contact with reality especially as evidenced by del...
Yoga and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Psychosis (Y-MBCTp©) is a newer evidence-based translational mindfulness therapy designed by Pradhan for stress management and various psychiatric disorders. Drs Pradhan and Pinninti have adapted it as a brief therapy for psychotic disorders and it can be used in an extended therapy format as well. Y...
This book offers a clinical guide that brings together a broad range of brief interventions and their applications in treating psychosis. It describes two core approaches that can narrow the current, substantial gap between the need for psychotherapeutic interventions for all individuals suffering from psychosis, and the limited mental health resou...
Addiction is a complex brain disease & huge public health burden for which effective treatments are limited if not lacking. Drug Memories lay at the core in addiction and two learning mechanisms (extinction and re-consolidation) mediate this conditioned learning process. Therapeutic manipulation of memory for treatment of addictive disorders in hum...
Almost one in five person in US suffers from anxiety disorders (prevalence 18%) and the impact of untreated anxiety in youth and adult is enormous. Effective treatment options are limited & are often not optimal and with many feasibility & adherence issues. Here we present the results of a pilot study that examined efficacy of an anxiety specific t...
Introduction:
Rapunzel syndrome is a unique clinical manifestation of trichotillomania and trichophagia. The resulting gastric trichobezoar can be massive and necessitate surgical extraction.
Presentation of case:
We present a case involving a 15 year-old female with a known history of trichotillomania. The patient possessed symptoms of nausea a...
Depression affects about 121 million people worldwide and prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) in US adults is 6.4%. Treatment resistant depression (TRD) accounts for approximately 12–20% of all depression patients and costs $29–$48 billion annually. Ketamine and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) have useful roles in TRD,...
Although heterogeneous and complex with respect to its scope and meaning, Yoga and meditation can be broadly conceptualized as self-management strategies for gaining insight into the principles of the human mind that explain the nature of its thoughts and experiences. These insights help us realize how to reaccess a natural and positive state of mi...
Deep philosophies of Yoga and meditation are the various theories about human mind and the various ways the mind works. Yoga, mindfulness, and mentalization are three related concepts and are often used interchangeably. Both mindfulness and mentalization are metacognitive which is defined simply as reflective cognition about cognition or knowing ab...
The relationship between body (more specifically the brain) and mind is so intimate that it is called as a mind–body unit. The Self and It’s Brain (1977), a famous book by Popper, a philosopher, and Eccles, a neurophysiologist and Noble Prize winner, describes this beautifully. This chapter attempts to integrate neuroscience (specifically, cognitiv...
Yoga is not that new to the Western world. In fact, studying about the Transcendentalist Movement in the eighteenth-century West, one can see the deep influence of the ancient Indian Yogic scriptures (Upanishad) on notable Western philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, author of the famous book, The World as Will and Representation (Payne 1958). Sc...
Yoga is an ancient system of experiential science that has survived thousands of years. Despite the long and rich history of Yoga, for various reasons already mentioned in Chap. 1, Yoga has been used (and abused) in quite heterogeneous and non-standardized ways. Use of Yoga and meditation in piecemeal rather than in its entirety is analogous to the...
Alarmingly, only 59% of those who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) respond to SSRIs. Many of the existing treatments, both pharmacological & non-pharmacological, don't directly target trauma memories which lay at the core in the PTSD pathogenesis. Notable exceptions are medications like ketamine and propranolol and trauma focused psychoth...
Abstract: Objective: Despite current advancements in treatments, poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options in PTSD
are major challenges. Because of feasibility and acceptability issues with many existing treatment options, this challenge
is even more pronounced in adolescents with PTSD. The extinction-only based treatments including prolonged...
Background: Sleep disturbance, including insomnia, is a major health issue among both adults and adolescents. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have recently received increased attention as a non-pharmacological treatment option for patients with insomnia. Objectives: This meta-analysis assesses the effects of MBIs on sleep disturbance in the...
India is a country with a population of more than 1 billion, and children below 16 years of age constitute more than 40% of its population. Despite our strengths in terms of great tradition and culture and above all abundance of family support, on downside, we have low budgetary resources, interference from competing and conflicting healing systems...
Objective: Despite recent advancements in treatments, prognosis for PTSD is still poor and there are limited therapeutic options. Because of feasibility and acceptability issues with many existing treatment options, this challenge is even more pronounced in adolescents with PTSD. The extinction-only based treatments including prolonged exposure the...
The mind has central importance in Yoga, more so in Buddhism which in general begins with the mind. The central philosophy of Yoga is the fact that the mind is the key to changing the nature of our experiences. The mind is the single most important factor in the practice of Yoga. Depending upon how one uses it, the mind can be one’s greatest enemy...
There are two basic ways Yogic sciences are proposed in the scriptures and applied within various traditions: (i) Yoga–meditation as a psychosomatic science and (ii) Yoga and meditation as attentional sciences. The first three chapters of this book provide descriptions of these two fundamental aspects. Descriptions of the key techniques of Yoga and...
This book attempts to bridge the considerable gaps that exist between spiritual philosophies and evidence-based medicine and between the psychotherapeutic models of the East and the West. Based on the insights of both the ancient wisdom and modern medicine, this book presents Yogic science not just as a set of physical exercises or religious ritual...
The concept of providing psychophar-macological treatment for children and youth remains controversial. This has especially been true regarding the use of monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) due to their significant side effects and concern about dietary adherence by children, youth, and their families. However, some literature and clinical experi...
Psychotherapy (psychological therapy; popularly known as the talk therapy) is a general term that refers to the psychological interventions executed by a trained professional to decrease distress and/or improve functioning in a client, patient, family, couple, or group. Applied psychology or psychotherapy is the study of the mind and mental states...
Recent times have seen rise in reporting of Anorexia nervosa (AN) cases from non-western societies. Classically it has been thought that the cases from traditional societies are atypical and are not associated with weight phobia. We present case descriptions of two adolescent girls with AN presenting to our centre with restriction of food intake an...
Substance abuse continues to be a significant health problem for adolescents and young adults in the United States and elsewhere. Up-to-date information on the many facets of this issue is essential for physicians who care for these young people. This issue provides reviews of the latest information on the various substances that adolescents use an...
Substance abuse continues to be a significant health problem for adolescents and young adults in the United States and elsewhere. Up-to-date information on the many facets of this issue is essential for physicians who care for these young people. This issue provides reviews of the latest information on the various substances that adolescents use an...
A 46-year-old man had a smoke inhalation injury. Within 1 month, he developed neuropsychiatric problems including toxic encephalopathy, cognitive disorder, depression symptoms and personality change. From 3 to 14 years after the toxic inhalation injury, the patient received treatment with sertraline and methylphenidate. The (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose...
Background and objectives: India has the world's highest population density and growth, with children constituting almost 37% of the population. There are very few studies on epidemiology of childhood psychiatric disorders in In-dia and these are mostly limited to prevalence, varying widely in their methodology. The main objective of this paper is...
Lithium-induced polyuria, although common, often goes unrecognized. The purpose of the present study was therefore to investigate the complaints of polyuria, and distress and functional impairment associated with polyuria, in 56 patients with bipolar disorder on long-term lithium treatment. All participants underwent 24-h urine collection, and rena...
Studies on incidence of childhood mental disorders are extremely rare globally and there are none from India. Incidence studies though more difficult and time consuming, provide invaluable information on the pattern and causes of occurrence of mental disorders allowing opportunity for early intervention and primary prevention.
This study aimed at e...
Earlier comparisons of cognitive impairment among patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia have found a largely similar profile of deficits, but results have varied between studies. This prompted the current attempt at another such comparison.
Executive functions, memory, IQ, attention-concentration and perceptuomotor function were assessed...
Lithium still remains an important choice in the therapy of manic-depressive psychosis (MDP), and though there are reports of seasonal variation in lithium levels from a few countries, such studies have not been conducted in India. Variability in the lithium level can lead to lack of efficacy or toxicity, making seasonal variation clinically releva...
Cognitive impairment has been commonly found in euthymic patients with bipolar affective disorder (BPAD). Information about onset and course of cognitive deficits is, however, scarce. This study examined the cognitive profile of patients following their first episode of BPAD to determine whether cognitive problems are present at such an early stage...