About Associate Professor Adam Guastella
I aim to develop new psychological interventions to improve treatment effectiveness and treatment access for the community.
My research aims to develop new, more effective treatments for a variety of mental health disorders by translating neuroscience findings into community practice.
I am a principal research fellow and clinical psychologist at the Brain & Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney. I manage the anxiety clinic at the BMRI which provides assessment and treatments for all BMRI and headspace associated sites to individuals diagnosed with anxiety disorders including social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder and generalised anxiety disorder. These community sites target the effective treatment of anxiety in young people aged between 12 and 30. In addition, I am involved with numerous treatment trials targeting a wide variety of mental health concerns using neuroscience interventions, including Autism, Schizophrenia, Substance Misuse and Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Broadly, I am interested in developing more effective clinical treatments for a range of mental health conditions that are based on neuroscience advances. This may take the form of cognitive-experimental investigations aimed at understand how biology can interact with psychological processes to cause, maintain and recover from mental health problems. Alternatively, it may take the form of developing new interventions that can be integrated and evaluated in our associated community treatment clinics. I am an honorary associate of a number of University schools, including the School of Psychology (University of Sydney; University of Western Sydney; University of Woollongong) and the School of Psychological Medicine (Monash University). I supervise the research thesis as primary supervisor for a number of PhD, masters, and honours level research thesis. I am open to research supervision from multi-disciplinary courses, although the majority of my students are currently from psychology and clinical psychology. Additionally, I supervise clinical students in practice from a variety of psychology departments. When I have time, I manage my own private practice for clinical services.
Selected publications
- Guastella, A., Kenyon, A., Unkelbach, C., Alvares, G., Hickie, I. (2011), Arginine Vasopressin selectively enhances recognition of sexual cues in male humans. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 36(2), 294-297 [PMID: 20729000]
- Carson, D., Hunt, G., Guastella, A., Barber, L., Cornish, J., Arnold, J., Boucher, A., McGregor, I. (2010), Systemically administered oxytocin decreases methamphetamine activation of the subthalamic nucleus and accumbens core and stimulates oxytocinergic neurons in the hypothalamus. Addiction Biology, 15(4), 448-463 [PMID: 20731630]
- Alvares, G., Hickie, I., Guastella, A. (2010), Acute effects of intranasal oxytocin on subjective and behavioral responses to social rejection. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 18(4), 316-321 [PMID: 20695687]
- Guastella, A., Kenyon, A., Alvares, G., Carson, D., Hickie, I. (2010), Intranasal Arginine Vasopressin Enhances the Encoding of Happy and Angry Faces in Humans. Biological Psychiatry, 67(12), 1220-1222 [PMID: 20447617]
- Guastella, A., Einfeld, S., Gray, K., Rinehart, N., Tonge, B., Lambert, T., Hickie, I. (2010), Intranasal Oxytocin Improves Emotion Recognition for Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Biological Psychiatry, 67(7), 692-694 [PMID: 19897177]
- Kemp, A., Guastella, A. (2010), Oxytocin: prosocial behavior, social salience, or approach-related behavior?. Biological Psychiatry, 67(6), e33-e34 [PMID: 20060102]
- Christensen, H., Guastella, A., Mackinnon, A., Griffiths, K., Eagleson, C., Batterham, P., Kalia, K., Kenardy, J., Bennett, K., Hickie, I. (2010), Protocol for a randomised controlled trial investigating the effectiveness of an online e-health application compared to attention placebo or sertraline in the treatment of generalised anxiety disorder. Trials, 11, 48 [PMID: 20429947]
- Carson, D., Cornish, J., Guastella, A., Hunt, G., McGregor, I. (2010), Oxytocin decreases methamphetamine self-administration, methamphetamine hyperactivity, and relapse to methamphetamine-seeking behaviour in rats. Neuropharmacology, 58(1), 38-43 [PMID: 19560473]
- Guastella, A., Howard, A., Dadds, M., Mitchell, P., Carson, D.(2009), A randomized controlled trial of intranasal oxytocin as an adjunct to exposure therapy for social anxiety disorder. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34(6), 917-923 [PMID: 19246160]
- Guastella, A., Carson, D., Dadds, M., Mitchell, P., Cox, R.(2009), Does oxytocin influence the early detection of angry and happy faces?. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 34(2), 220-225 [PMID: 18848401]