Exciting Possibilities at ASCP 2024

CONFERENCE REPORTER

In this Mental Health Minute, Anita H. Clayton, MD, chair of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences and professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Virginia, and president-elect (2023-25) of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology (ASCP), joins Psychiatric Times® live from the 2024 ASCP Annual Meeting and gives us an update on the meeting so far and what we can still expect. The full transcript is below.

Hi, I am Anita Clayton. I am professor and chair of psychiatry and neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia. I am also professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology in the UVA School of Medicine.

So, we are here at the ASCP Annual Meeting in Florida with generally good, but pretty hot and humid, weather. So, maybe some people are staying indoors to listen to some of the presentations. We have had 1 poster session, and we will have another one tomorrow.

These topics look really exciting and interesting and are about various new potential treatments that have unique mechanisms of action—and are also looking at potentially new areas to be treated, so clinical conditions with something that is already approved for some other purpose. I think people are also looking at various other digital pharmacogenomic and a whole variety of other kinds of electronic or biologic measures and biomarkers here, too.

I think this could be very exciting, or at least the start of some really exciting possibilities because we all have unmet needs in all of our conditions, so we really do need some additional treatments to get our patients well and fully functional.

Participation in ASCP this year has been great. Lots of people are here. There is no virtual program, so people are here in person, interacting. And I think that is 1 of the greatest things about ASCP: You get to talk to people who are literally legends in psychiatry in terms of diagnosis and treatments that have been developed. And we also get to talk to people who are doing work that is new and exciting that we have never even heard of. So, if you are not here this year, join us next year!

Dr Clayton is chair of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences and professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Virginia. She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and was named to the 2019-2020 Best Doctors in America list.

Follow the Psychiatric Times coverage of the 2024 ASCP Annual Meeting, and stay up-to-date on news related to research on promising new interventions and developments in the treatment of a wide variety of psychiatric disorders, at psychiatrictimes.com.