AIM Funded Research

Technology-Delivered Intervention for Youth Anxiety

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to postdoctoral research associate, Alexandra Werntz, from the University of Virginia. Dr. Werntz will develop and evaluate a free, easy-to-access technology-delivered intervention (TDI) for youth anxiety used within the context of formal mentoring programs. $50,000
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AIM DISBURSES $180,000 TO UCLA’S CENTER FOR COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE – SEMEL INSTITUTE

AIM disbursed $180,000 to UCLA’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, which studies the brain and neuropsychiatric disorders in children and adults using advanced brain imaging, specifically functional and structural MRI.
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Dr. Katie McLaughlin: Understanding How Stress Causes Anxiety and Depression in Youth

$250,000 grant for 3 years at University of Washington. Dr. McLaughlin used brain imaging and smartphone-enabled technologies to investigate the biology of how stress can lead to anxiety and depression in youth.
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Preventing Anxiety in Youth – AIM Sullivan Family Rising Star Award

$250,000 grant for 3 years at University of Michigan. Anxiety disorders start early in life, affecting one in five children, and often set the stage for later depression, substance abuse, and even suicide. Dr. Kate D. Fitzgerald’s AIM Sullivan Family Rising Star Award is funding research to prevent childhood anxiety from worsening by increasing brain capacity for controlling fear.
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Advancing the Assessment and Treatment of Severe Irritability and Mood Dysregulation in Youth

Dr. Spencer Evans evaluated the effectiveness of existing assessment tools and treatment strategies for severe irritability as well as exploring novel approaches to personalized assessment and treatment. $70,000
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Early Intervention to Prevent Serious Mental Illness in Teens

Dr. Marc Weintraub examined the emotional and cognitive pathways linked to severe mental illness in adolescents. His findings include a new approach to treating early symptoms of severe mental illness in teens, holding promise for prevention.
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Behavioral Parent Training and Talk Therapies for Disruptive Behavior in Children

$65,580 Second-Year Science Fellowship award for research into finding effective responses for children with severe irritability and frequent aggressive, disruptive behavior. The work is being done by Dr. Spencer Evans, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.
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Computerized Brain Training Exercises for Children at High Risk for Developing Serious Mental Illness

Seed funding for a study of innovative treatment that combines computerized brain training exercises resembling popular video games and intensive “talk therapy.” The research is being done by Dr. Barbara Cornblatt, a Professor of Psychiatry and Molecular Medicine and the Director of the Recognition and Prevention (RAP) Program at Hofstra University’s Northwell School of Medicine. $60,000
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Assessing how Postpartum Depression Affects Child Development

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Dr. Kunmi Sobowale, from University of California, Los Angeles. As an AIM Clinical Science Fellow, Dr. Sobowale’s study will use mobile sensing devices (audio recorders, Bluetooth sensors, and a wearable wristband) to assess how postpartum depression affects the mother-child interaction and child development.
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Addressing Urgent Knowledge Gaps in Youth Mental Health Research

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Dr. Karolin Krause, from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. As an AIM Clinical Science Fellow, Dr. Krause will work to addresses urgent knowledge gaps regarding the content validity and interpretability of impairment scales in youth mental health. Her research focuses on strengthening outcome measurement in youth mental health, with a focus on consistency, youth-centeredness, and the assessment of functional impairment.
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Youth Mental Health and Violence

Dr. Jerel Ezell, a professor at Berkeley University, is leading a study on youth violence in urban centers around the country. With AIM’s support, Ezell will be building a “community action board” of Black and Latino youth in Los Angeles to act as researcher collaborators in his study of youth violence.
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Smartphone Delivered Mindfulness Intervention

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Dr. Hannah Lawrence, from the Treatment and Etiology of Depression in Youth Laboratory at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lawrence research will test whether a smartphone-delivered mindfulness intervention reduces anxiety and depressive symptoms in adolescents by helping them disengage from repetitive negative thought (RNT). $50,000
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Family Interventions for Eating Disorders in Youth through Telehealth

Two coordinated telehealth family intervention eating disorder studies at UCSD and Stanford The study will include two coordinated projects focused on the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary clinical utility of telehealth to deliver family interventions for eating disorders in youth. The UCSD project will focus on multi-family support for patients in treatment. $70,000. The Stanford University project will focus on the online self-help family interventions for patients/families awaiting treatment. $50,000. Both projects will have common outcome measures to assess feasibility, acceptability and clinical change.
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Role of Stress, Anxiety, and Parental Influences in Children’s Eating Behaviors

$50,417 Clinical Science Fellowship award to support research on eating in the absence of hunger and obesity risk among African-American and Latinx youth. The work is being done by Dr. Joya Hampton-Anderson, a clinical post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at Emory University. A key element in this research is the role that stress, anxiety, and parental influences play in determining children’s eating behaviors.
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Help for Parents with Children on Waitlists for Therapy

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grantee: Madelaine R. Abel, PhD -Massachusetts General Hospital. Madelaine will evaluate the acceptability and efficacy of a single-session, self-guided, online intervention delivered to parents of children ages 5-12-years-old who are on the waitlist for outpatient CBT.
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Youth Intervention for Positive Emotion Enhancement

AIM Implementation & Equity Grantee: Galen McNeil, PhD - UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Dr. McNeil's study will pilot a randomized-controlled trial of the Youth Intervention for Positive Emotion Enhancement (YIPEE) protocol for treatment-seeking anxious youth and their caregivers.
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Supporting Clinicians in Implementing Evidence-Based Practices

AIM Implementation & Equity Grant to Dr. Briana Last, from University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Last’s implementation science project is a community-based, participatory research study that seeks to support clinicians in implementing evidence-based practices. Using mixed methods, she plans to engage youth-serving clinicians in New York State’s public mental health clinics to examine structural and pragmatic barriers to implementing evidence-based practices. Informed by this contextual inquiry, she plans to use a human-centered design approach to develop a session planning tool that will facilitate clinicians’ use of evidence-based practices.
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Implementation of Evidence-Based Practices for Youth

AIM Implementation & Equity Grant to Dr. Evelyn Cho. Dr. Evelyn Cho is a postdoctoral fellow in the Lab for Youth Mental Health at Harvard University. Her program of research focuses on supporting high quality implementation of evidence-based practices for youths and families receiving mental health care in community settings.
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A Suicide Intervention App for College Students

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Benjamin Johnson, from Pennsylvania State. Dr. Johnson’s research combines two aims: 1) apply machine learning to ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data to predict the emergence of self-harm urges and suicidality among young adults; 2) employ a mobile intervention to reduce the likelihood of such behaviors.
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Potential Predictors of Suicide in Youth

$64,000 grant. Working alongside AIM Scientific Advisory Board member, Dr. Hilary Blumberg, Anjali will investigate potential predictors of suicide in youth and strategies to reduce them, with a focus on brain and symptom changes before and after psychotherapeutic and pharmacological interventions.
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Using AI to Improve Teen Mental Health Helplines

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grantee: Sylvanna Vargas, PhD, MPH - UCLA Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Vargas's research aims to increase the quality and reach of mental health care, with an eye on improving services for the most vulnerable.
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Help for Parents with Children on Waitlists for Therapy

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grantee: Madelaine R. Abel, PhD -Massachusetts General Hospital. Madelaine will evaluate the acceptability and efficacy of a single-session, self-guided, online intervention delivered to parents of children ages 5-12-years-old who are on the waitlist for outpatient CBT.
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Smartphone Delivered Mindfulness Intervention

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Dr. Hannah Lawrence, from the Treatment and Etiology of Depression in Youth Laboratory at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lawrence research will test whether a smartphone-delivered mindfulness intervention reduces anxiety and depressive symptoms in adolescents by helping them disengage from repetitive negative thought (RNT). $50,000
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A Suicide Intervention App for College Students

AIM Clinical Science Fellow Grant to Benjamin Johnson, from Pennsylvania State. Dr. Johnson’s research combines two aims: 1) apply machine learning to ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data to predict the emergence of self-harm urges and suicidality among young adults; 2) employ a mobile intervention to reduce the likelihood of such behaviors.
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AIM Youth Mental Health is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Federal Tax ID: #47-3992060