ACNP Attendees Reflect on 2024 and Look Forward to 2025

As we close the book on 2024, we asked our contributors at the 63rd meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology what they are excited about from 2024 and what they are looking forward to in 2025.

Rudolf Uher, MUDr, PhD, told Psychiatric Times he was happy to see some predictive findings in depression replicating across studies. In 2025, he said, he hopes the same level of data will be more available and shared more often.

Himanshu Upadhyaya, MBBS, MBA, said the move away from labeling drugs as antipsychotics or antidepressants because they have been found to work in many different areas. He said that it is probably better to describe medications on their mechanism of action.

Tony George, MD, said 2024 brought forward the opportunity for psychiatry to be able to say we are now part of the whole pursuit of personalized medicine. "We used to dream maybe 25 years ago that we'll do a blood test or a brain scan and we'll know exactly what drug to prescribe," George said. Looking forward, he said there is a lot of interest in alternative treatments, like psychedelics and ketamine.

Precision psychiatry was top of mind for Robert Chen, MD, PhD. " I think that there has been an ushering of new mechanisms that people are going to go after for novel drug targets," Chen said.

Steven P. Levine, MD, said there is a lot of reason for optimism in psychiatry right now. "We've seen first approval of a new mechanism in schizophrenia this year, which is really encouraging, really exciting," Levine said.

Arthur Caye, MD, PhD, told Psychiatric Times that how the medical field thinks about ADHD is changing. Instead of a childhood-onset disorder, he said, but that the disorder waxes and wanes for some.

Jason Tucciarone MD, PhD, and Jennifer Lissemore, PhD, both agreed that the use of psychedelic medicine is a future for the field. "We were really excited about the ibogaine findings and we are excited to replicate in afew more populations," Lissemore said.