PSYC 243: Thriving in Collegiate Athletics: Key Concepts in Student-Athlete Mental Health and Wellness (PSYCH 143)
Develops knowledge and personal awareness of the psychosocial aspects of the student-athlete experience, including unique stressors and cultural factors. Develops a basic understanding of interventions and techniques used to facilitate psychological well-being. Understand how to identify and access resources that can benefit athletes from all levels of competitive play. Through interactive, experiential activities, readings, and videos students also will gain skills for enhancing personal well-being, interpersonal communication, connecting peers with existing resources, and promoting a culture of support, resilience, and wellbeing. Note: Course will be capped at 20 and will be canceled if less than 8 students are enrolled.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
PSYC 244: Islamic Psychology (CSRE 144A, PSYC 144)
The first psychiatric hospitals in the world were established as early as the 8th century during the Islamic Golden Era. Despite the emergence of a highly sophisticated and interdisciplinary system of understanding the human psyche in early Islamic history, most students of modern psychology are unfamiliar with this rich history. This course will provide a historical and contemporary review of the Islamic intellectual heritage as it pertains to modern behavioral science and how mental illness was historically perceived and treated in the Muslim world. We will begin with a discussion of Islamic epistemology, reconcile issues such as secular vs sacred sources of knowledge and tackle the mind/body dilemma according to Islamic theology. We will then review holistic schemas of health and pathology in the Islamic religious tradition, the nature of the human being, elements of the human psyche, and principles of change leading to positive character reformation. As Stanford is the academic home of Muslim mental health research globally, we will benefit from talks by guest researchers and speakers, partake in field trips to community partners, and utilize group discussions to provide students with a deeper understanding of these topics.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 8 units total)
Instructors:
Awaad, R. (PI)
PSYC 248: AI's Psyche and Psych: Mental Health in the Age of AI (PSYC 148)
How does AI make you feel? This course, led by two psychiatrists who are actively seeing patients and working with AI companies, will investigate the impact of generative AI on your/user mental health and the mental healthcare system. It will emphasize both the profound benefits of the technology while investigating its risks and poor outcomes. The class will cover topics ranging from the history of sentencing algorithms and current legal framework of AI and healthcare, to AI in organizations like NASA and the Department of Defense. It will round out this discussion by tapping into industry expertise to hear how the largest AI companies are thinking about mental health. It will help you understand how as a user of AI, you can protect yourself from harm and leverage the best of AI to improve your life and the life of others. Further, it will help you understand how to develop safe, effective, and inclusive AI that benefits society and humanity.
Last offered: Winter 2025
| Units: 1-2
PSYC 249: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Subspecialty Areas
In this lunch talk series (lunch will be provided), students will explore psychiatry and behavioral science subspecialty areas through the personal perspectives of psychiatrists and other specialists in behavioral health from a variety of practice settings. Some examples of topics have been advances in subspecialty areas (e.g., child and adolescent psychiatry, legal issues, addiction, psychosis, eating disorders), the interplay between social issues and mental healthcare, and the nature of psychiatric work and work/life integration. Of note, this course discusses sensitive topics in psychiatry including suicide, psychosis, addiction, child abuse, sexual assault, trauma, violence, and mental disorders. While priority will be given to MD students, undergraduates and graduate students are welcomed. Address questions to Prof. Isheeta Zalpuri, izalpuri@stanford.edu. Access and Accommodations: Stanford is committed to providing equal educational opportunities for disabled students. Disabled
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In this lunch talk series (lunch will be provided), students will explore psychiatry and behavioral science subspecialty areas through the personal perspectives of psychiatrists and other specialists in behavioral health from a variety of practice settings. Some examples of topics have been advances in subspecialty areas (e.g., child and adolescent psychiatry, legal issues, addiction, psychosis, eating disorders), the interplay between social issues and mental healthcare, and the nature of psychiatric work and work/life integration. Of note, this course discusses sensitive topics in psychiatry including suicide, psychosis, addiction, child abuse, sexual assault, trauma, violence, and mental disorders. While priority will be given to MD students, undergraduates and graduate students are welcomed. Address questions to Prof. Isheeta Zalpuri, izalpuri@stanford.edu. Access and Accommodations: Stanford is committed to providing equal educational opportunities for disabled students. Disabled students are a valued and essential part of the Stanford community. We welcome you to our class. If you experience disability, please register with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate your needs, support appropriate and reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Academic Accommodation Letter for faculty. To get started, or to re-initiate services, please visit
oae.stanford.edu. If you already have an Academic Accommodation Letter, we invite you to share your letter with us. Academic Accommodation Letters should be shared at the earliest possible opportunity so we may partner with you and OAE to identify any barriers to access and inclusion that might be encountered in your experience of this course.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
6 times
(up to 6 units total)
Instructors:
Zalpuri, I. (PI)
;
Bharti, S. (TA)
PSYC 250: Methodology of Research in Behavioral Sciences
Statistical and methodological issues in three major psychiatric research themes: clinical psychiatric research (Autumn), neuroimaging research (Winter), and statistical genetics and general statistical modeling (Spring). Autumn series includes: basics of inferential statistics, group comparison, analysis of variance, regression analysis, multivariate analysis, and longitudinal analysis in the context of psychiatric and behavioral research. Also included are conceptual topics such as risk factors, mediation, moderation, and causal inference. Winter series will cover advanced neuroimaging robust preprocessing and analysis methods including static and dynamic brain functional connectivity, diffusion networks, graph theoretical and multimodal network analyses, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy, among others. The Winter series is recommended for students with prior exposure to neuroimaging analysis. Practical examples from recent research within the Department of Psychiatry will be
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Statistical and methodological issues in three major psychiatric research themes: clinical psychiatric research (Autumn), neuroimaging research (Winter), and statistical genetics and general statistical modeling (Spring). Autumn series includes: basics of inferential statistics, group comparison, analysis of variance, regression analysis, multivariate analysis, and longitudinal analysis in the context of psychiatric and behavioral research. Also included are conceptual topics such as risk factors, mediation, moderation, and causal inference. Winter series will cover advanced neuroimaging robust preprocessing and analysis methods including static and dynamic brain functional connectivity, diffusion networks, graph theoretical and multimodal network analyses, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy, among others. The Winter series is recommended for students with prior exposure to neuroimaging analysis. Practical examples from recent research within the Department of Psychiatry will be used throughout the course. Prerequisite: Some exposure to statistical methods, either from course work or from participation in research having some behavioral aspects, or consent of instructor. 1 unit for class participation only, 2 units includes weekly assignments, 3 units includes a final project.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 1-3
| Repeatable
for credit
PSYC 261: The Neurobiology of Sleep (BIO 149, BIO 249, HUMBIO 161, PSYC 149)
Prerequisite for
HUMBIO 161: Must be a junior, senior, or graduate student to enroll. The neurochemistry and neurophysiology of changes in brain activity and conscious awareness are associated with changes in the sleep/wake state. Behavioral and neurobiological phenomena include sleep regulation, sleep homeostasis, circadian rhythms, sleep disorders, sleep function, and the molecular biology of sleep. Preference to seniors and graduate students.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
PSYC 265: Using Real-World Data for Clinical and Population Health Research (BMDS 238, EPI 265)
Real-world data is data that was not collected for the purpose of research. It is being used to answer traditional research questions, along with applications for many Artificial Intelligence models. While the potential for insights from this type of data is substantial, there are complex aspects to using this data that without careful attention, can lead to errors in inference. This course focuses on the origins of real-world data and study design considerations, emphasizes the importance of a team-science approach.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2
Instructors:
Desai, M. (PI)
;
Hernandez-Boussard, T. (PI)
;
O'hara, R. (PI)
;
Rehkopf, D. (PI)
...
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Instructors:
Desai, M. (PI)
;
Hernandez-Boussard, T. (PI)
;
O'hara, R. (PI)
;
Rehkopf, D. (PI)
;
Kamdar, N. (SI)
PSYC 270: The Future of Mental Health
According to the Lancet Commission, the world's failure to respond to the global mental health crisis has resulted in a "monumental loss of human capabilities and avoidable suffering." The sheer scale of this crisis is a need that cannot be met by the healthcare system and mental health startups alone. The future of mental health involves all of us. Organized as a speaker series, this course delivers rich and diverse content in the form of interviews and conversations between mental health clinicians, and leaders and innovators across a multidisciplinary set of fields including athletics, entertainment, journalism, politics, business, medicine/science, tech, education and beyond. Speakers will share their personal experiences with mental health, how they have led change in today's mental health landscape, and what we need to be doing to create a new future for mental health that is accessible, equitable and de-stigmatized. This series of conversations is meant to showcase the role that
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According to the Lancet Commission, the world's failure to respond to the global mental health crisis has resulted in a "monumental loss of human capabilities and avoidable suffering." The sheer scale of this crisis is a need that cannot be met by the healthcare system and mental health startups alone. The future of mental health involves all of us. Organized as a speaker series, this course delivers rich and diverse content in the form of interviews and conversations between mental health clinicians, and leaders and innovators across a multidisciplinary set of fields including athletics, entertainment, journalism, politics, business, medicine/science, tech, education and beyond. Speakers will share their personal experiences with mental health, how they have led change in today's mental health landscape, and what we need to be doing to create a new future for mental health that is accessible, equitable and de-stigmatized. This series of conversations is meant to showcase the role that we can all play in addressing the mental health crisis, whether teaching students, managing a team, advocating for BLM, designing a product, or posting on Instagram. Open to all Stanford students, encourage students from all types of graduate and undergraduate programs to register. Required brief weekly reflection process.
Last offered: Winter 2022
| Units: 1
PSYC 278: AI-Assisted Care (BIOE 277, CS 337, MED 277)
Today, anyone can train a near state-of-the-art machine learning model with a laptop, a dataset, and a few lines of code. For many applications, model building is no longer the rate-limiting step in using AI and machine learning to improve human health. In this course, we examine the other areas that need to be addressed -- from choosing the right problem, to moving technical advances into the clinical setting and making sure we are actually improving outcomes that matter. This course is geared at anyone who is looking to use AI and machine learning to make a real-world positive impact on human health. Students from all schools welcome. The course can be taken for 1 unit (lecture attendance/participation) or 2-4 units, which will include a project component. Class website:
https://cs337.stanford.edu/
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-4
PSYC 281: Personalization and intervention for aging-related mental health disorders (PSYC 181)
Personalized interventions refer to those in which the design features are selected based on characteristics of the individual, so that the final intervention is unique to a person or a group of people. Aging-related mental health problems (e.g., dementia, late-onset geriatric depression, etc.) are among the most prevalent and challenging health problems worldwide. The objective of the curriculum is to provide individuals from engineering or clinical background with a comprehensive and up-to-date overview on intervention research targeting aging-related mental health, guided by principles of personalization. At the end of the course, course attendees will be paired up, based on their technical or clinical knowledge and experience and application interest, to design personalized intervention, and establish a comprehensive understanding of intervention research and aging-related mental health outcomes. Principles of personalization will be integrated into the curriculum. The curriculum w
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Personalized interventions refer to those in which the design features are selected based on characteristics of the individual, so that the final intervention is unique to a person or a group of people. Aging-related mental health problems (e.g., dementia, late-onset geriatric depression, etc.) are among the most prevalent and challenging health problems worldwide. The objective of the curriculum is to provide individuals from engineering or clinical background with a comprehensive and up-to-date overview on intervention research targeting aging-related mental health, guided by principles of personalization. At the end of the course, course attendees will be paired up, based on their technical or clinical knowledge and experience and application interest, to design personalized intervention, and establish a comprehensive understanding of intervention research and aging-related mental health outcomes. Principles of personalization will be integrated into the curriculum. The curriculum will serve for growing advanced interdisciplinary scholars in the field of personalized interventions, particularly in the context of aging-related mental health. In the course, the following key topics will be covered, including clinical trial designs from traditional pharmacological, device, and non-pharmacological intervention studies to emerging work on SMART or other adaptive design approach; clinically meaningful intervention outcomes; New theories and research on intervention personalization and engagement; Mechanisms and causality in intervention studies; Multi-modality signal processing and data analysis for neurophysiological-behavioral data for interventions from both traditional biostatistics and emerging AI/machine learning perspectives; and Human-machine interface and other technical applications in personalization.
Last offered: Spring 2025
| Units: 3