Neuroscience-based Nomenclature - coming of age: new developments

Pierre Blier, MD, PhD, is a full professor at the University of Ottawa, Department of Psychiatry and Cellular/Molecular Medicine, and the recipient of the Chair in Mood Disorders Research at The Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR), affiliated with the University of Ottawa. As a world-renowned scientist, Dr. Blier has received several awards for his ground-breaking research, in particular the Basic Research Award in 2010 from the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology for outstanding contributions in Psychopharmacology. He obtained his BSc from Bishop’s University and MSc in Neuroscience from the Université de Montréal. Dr. Blier continued his research training throughout his medical education at the Université de Montréal, where he obtained both his MD and his PhD in Neuroscience. After completing his clinical training, he carried out post-doctoral studies at the Laboratoire d`Étude et de Recherche Synthélabo in Paris. Dr Blier then joined the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University where he worked for 12 years, ascending through the ranks from assistant professor to full professor. He continued his research endeavours for the next four years at the Brain Institute of the University of Florida as a tenured full professor. Dr. Blier relocated to the IMHR in 2004. He has delivered over 500 national and international lectures in academic settings, and has published over 300 original papers in numerous scientific journals. He is a member of the British Psychopharmacology Association and of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, as well as a fellow of the Canadian, American and International Colleges of Neuropsychopharmacology. He is the co-editor in chief of the Journal of Psychopharmacology. He serves on several committees, including presidency of the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CINP). His latest research effort has been focused on implementing rapid-acting antidepressant strategies, including low-dose ketamine for treatment-resistant depression. He was the first researcher in Canada to begin investigating this new and promising approach to treating depression. He is also one of the ten members of the international task force for devising and implementing a novel neuroscience-based nomenclature for psychotropic medications. Dr. Blier continues to see patients with mood and anxiety disorders on a daily basis.

Stephen M. Stahl received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Northwestern University in Chicago, as a member of the honors program in Medical Education, and his Ph.D. degree in pharmacology and physiology from the University of Chicago. Dr. Stahl has trained in three specialties: internal medicine at the University of Chicago; neurology at the University of California in San Francisco; and psychiatry at Stanford University. He is board certified in psychiatry. Dr. Stahl has held faculty positions at Stanford University, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the Institute of Psychiatry London, the Institute of Neurology London, and, currently, as clinical professor at the University of California Riverside, adjunct professor at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and as an Honorary Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge in the UK. He also directs psychopharmacology services and academic programs for the five facility, 6500 patient California Department of State Hospital System, where he also heads their assessment and treatment efforts to reduce violence. Dr. Stahl was formerly Executive Director of Clinical Neurosciences at the Merck Neuroscience Research Center in the UK for several years. Dr. Stahl is Editor Emeritus of CNS Spectrums, former associate editor of Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, and former clinical field editor for the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology and is on numerous editorial boards of other leading journals including the ACNP's journal Neuropsychopharmacology. He has conducted numerous research projects during his career awarded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), by the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) and by the pharmaceutical industry. Author of over 600 articles and chapters, and more than 2500 scientific presentations and abstracts, Dr. Stahl is an internationally recognized clinician, researcher and teacher in psychiatry with subspecialty expertise in psychopharmacology. Dr. Stahl has written 65 books and edited 17 others, including the best-selling and award winning textbook, Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology, now entering its fifth edition, and the best-selling and award winning clinical manual, Essential Psychopharmacology Prescriber's Guide, now in its eighth edition. Dr. Stahl serves as a fellow of the ACNP (American College of Neuro-psychopharmacology), of the British Association of Psychopharmacology (BAP) and of the CINP, where he was formerly vice president and is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA).. His books have won the British Medical Association’s Book of the Year Award and Dr. Stahl is winner of the A.E. Bennett Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, the Distinguished Psychiatrist Award of the APA, the David Mrazek Award Winner of the APA for Pharmacogenomics. In 2018 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science by Üsküdar University in Istanbul, Turkey for his lifetime of achievements in psychiatry and in 2024 he was awarded an honorary doctorate Doctor of Medical Sciences honoris causa from the University of Cambridge.

Christoph Correll is Professor of Psychiatry at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, New York, USA, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Charité University Medicine, Berlin, Germany. He completed his medical studies at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and University of Dundee School of Medicine, Scotland. He is board certified in general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry, having completed both residencies at the Zucker Hillside Hospital, New York. Since 1997, he has been working and conducting research in the USA, and in Germany since 2017.