Sarah T. Stahl, PhD, “Spousal Bereavement as a Risk Factor for Depression in Older Adults” 

Dr. Stahl earned her PhD in Life-span Developmental Psychology from West Virginia University in 2011. Her graduate work focused on healthy aging and the relationship between health behaviors (physical activity, nutrition, and sleep) and mental health in older adults. She then completed postdoctoral training in Geriatric Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh where she examined the health effects of late-life spousal bereavement with Dr. Richard Schulz at the University Center for Social and Urban Research. She also worked with Drs. Charles F. Reynolds III and Steven M. Albert at the Advanced Center in Intervention and Services Research (ACISR) for Late-Life Depression to understand how lifestyle interventions may be implemented to prevent mental health problems among high-risk samples of older adults. Spousal bereavement is an incredibly stressful experience that triggers changes to older adults’ daily routine including changes to their physical activity, diet, and sleep behaviors. With support from a career development award (K01) from the NIMH, Dr. Stahl is developing and testing a lifestyle intervention to prevent depression, anxiety, and/or prolonged grief disorder(s) among older adults who experience spousal bereavement. She is also exploring inflammatory cytokines as a potential moderator/mediator of mental health risk.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of Dr. Stahl's lecture, participants will be able to:

Discuss the physical and mental health effects of spousal bereavement in older adults.
Discuss lifestyle strategies that may promote physical and mental health in older adults who experience spousal bereavement. 
Identify physiologic correlates of bereavement and the impact of bereavement interventions 

Melynda D. Casement, PhD, “The Contribution of Stressful Life Events and Insufficient Sleep to Reward-Related Brain Function and Depression in Adolescent Girls”

Dr. Casement is a clinical scientist who studies the neurocognitive mechanisms by which stressful life events and insufficient sleep contribute to depression and other forms of psychopathology.  She earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Mount Holyoke College (2002) and a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology and Biopsychology at the University of Michigan (2010). After obtaining postdoctoral research training at Boston VA and the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Casement was recruited to the Department of Psychiatry faculty.  Her research has focused on affective processing biases as a key neurocognitive mechanism of depression. She is driven to understand how these affective biases develop and how they can be remediated.  Dr. Casement has published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals including Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Sleep Medicine, and Clinical Psychology Review. She has also presented her work at professional meetings for the Sleep Research Society and the Society for Research on Child Psychopathology, and she is an active member of the Psychiatry Department’s Developmental Affective Science Collective (DASC) and Sleep and Chronobiology Center (SCC).

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of the lecture, attendees will be able to:

Discuss the potential effects of social stress and sleep on reward-related brain function. 
Evaluate the role of reward-related brain function in the development of depression.
Identify multiple forms of stress that contribute to depression in adolescence.

For more information regarding this lecture, please contact Frances Patrick via email atpatrickfm@upmc.edu or by calling 412-246-6787.