NIH awards $4 million grant to psychologists researching suicide prevention
University of Notre Dame psychologists Theodore Beauchaine and Kristin Valentino have been awarded the Transformative Research Award from the National Institutes of Health to research two promising new interventions to reduce the risk of suicide among vulnerable youth.
Part of the NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, the award supports individuals or teams proposing transformative projects that are inherently untested but have the potential to create major scientific breakthroughs by challenging existing paradigms.
“We are thrilled to receive the Transformative Research Award,” said Beauchaine, the William K. Warren Foundation Professor of Psychology and director of primary prevention at the Notre Dame Suicide Prevention Initiative. “The traditional pipeline for new interventions is 12 years long, at best. This is an amazing opportunity to fast-track these methods and technologies in order to reach far more adolescents at far lower cost — and hopefully save lives.”
The $4 million grant will support a five-year project, “Leveraging Noninvasive Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Smartphone Technology to Reduce Suicidal Behaviors and Suicide Among Highly Vulnerable Adolescents,” led by Beauchaine and Valentino, the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families Professor of Psychology, as well as Arielle Sheftall of the University of Rochester. Brooke Ammerman and Ross Jacobucci, both assistant professors of psychology at Notre Dame, are also core contributors.
Over the past two decades, suicide rates have increased by nearly 35 percent in the U.S., and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated mental health issues. Although these upward trends affect nearly all demographic groups, adolescents in both rural and urban settings are particularly vulnerable — and more difficult to reach through traditional therapies.
“Most current primary prevention programs are intensive, expensive and delivered by highly trained mental health providers who are in short supply,” Beauchaine said. “Traditional face-to-face therapy is also unavailable to many who live in underserved communities and is disliked by adolescents, who much prefer digital delivery on their devices.”
With that in mind, the team seeks to “meet adolescents where they are” in this research, with two low-cost, noninvasive, scalable interventions: transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation to target emotion dysregulation and a peer-support smartphone app to combat social isolation.
Beauchaine and Valentino plan to enroll more than 200 adolescents (ages 13-17) from South Bend and surrounding communities who then will be assigned randomly to one of four groups — using one of the two new interventions, a combination of both, or access to traditional treatment.
Teens who receive vagus nerve stimulation will use a handheld/pocket device for 30 minutes each day that targets the nerve with a mild electrical current through a special earbud. Powered by a smartphone app, the device called Xen plays music of their choice at the same time.
Vagus nerve stimulation is shown to be effective in treating depression and improving emotion regulation in numerous studies, Beauchaine noted. And in one recent study of adults, the treatment was associated with lower rates of suicide five years later.
The second intervention involves a custom smartphone app that Ammerman is working to develop with support from the Notre Dame College of Engineering. The app will allow participants who are experiencing similar struggles to connect via text and phone to reduce social isolation.
“This is part of the high-risk, high-reward aspect of this research,” Beauchaine said. “Traditionally, professionals have tried to avoid connecting people who are struggling out of fear of contagion. But it turns out from the scientific literature that the risk of contagion is overstated. We will be in daily contact with all of our participants via phone and will also be monitoring closely for that.”
Often, traditional treatment for suicidal behavior is also not begun until there is significant distress. By identifying children and adolescents who are at high risk for self-injury and suicide attempts and addressing these risk factors before they become overwhelming, Beauchaine hopes to significantly reduce suicidal behaviors later on.
Beauchaine joined the Notre Dame faculty last year and said the College of Arts and Letters and Department of Psychology have offered tremendous support for his research, which he sees as integral to the University’s mission.
“It is very consistent with the Catholic mission of Notre Dame to engage in outreach to families, to people in distress, to poor communities, and to improve quality of life for those communities,” he said. “As many people have been touched by suicide as have been touched by cancer, according to national data. When you see the extent of pain people are in — including family members and other survivors — it's hard not to want to do something about that.”
Latest Faculty & Staff
- Opioid epidemic reaches beyond health impacts to influence politicsVicky Barone, assistant professor of economics at Notre Dame, researched the origins and development of the opioid epidemic and found that the unregulated marketing of potent painkillers led to increased access to prescription opioids and subsequent overdose mortalities. Tracing the long-term consequences of opioid overdose deaths on the political landscape in America, she found an increased support for conservative beliefs and Republican candidates.
- Doug Thompson appointed inaugural executive director of diversity and engagementDoug Thompson, current vice president for equity and inclusion at Gustavus Adolphus College, has been appointed as the inaugural executive director of diversity and engagement in the University of Notre Dame’s Division of Student Affairs, effective July 1.
- There’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to addressing men’s health issues globallyAt a time when health resources are at a premium and need to be wisely allocated, health professionals must find points within men’s lives when it makes the most sense to intervene and advocate for preventive care for promoting better health outcomes. Life transitions such as marriage and fatherhood are often pivotal and crucial intervention points. But just like every man is different, health concerns across global communities differ as well. Research from the University of Notre Dame finds that not all life transitions produce the same health results, and not all men’s global health policies should look the same from one country to another.
- Three Notre Dame faculty named 2024 Guggenheim FellowsBarbara Montero, a professor of philosophy; Gretchen Reydams-Schils, a professor in the Program of Liberal Studies; and Roy Scranton, an associate professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program and the Environmental Humanities Initiative, are among the 188 scholars, scientists and artists chosen from approximately 3,000 applicants for the fellowship. The Guggenheim Foundation awards these fellowships to outstanding scholars in order to add to the educational, literary, artistic and scientific power of the country.
- Essays on democracy draw attention to critical threats, explore safeguards ahead of Jan. 6Shortly after Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building, Notre Dame’s Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy established the January 6th, 2025, Project, which includes 10 Notre Dame faculty who are preeminent scholars of democracy. In an effort to understand the social, political, psychological and demographic factors that led to that troublesome day, the group created a collection of 14 essays aimed at drawing attention to the vulnerabilities in our democratic system and the threats building against it, hoping to create consensus on ways to remedy both problems.
- Carter Snead testifies before US Senate Judiciary CommitteeO. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, offered expert testimony on Wednesday (March 20) before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the current legal landscape following the landmark Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.