Associate Professor - Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Health
Director - Program for Resilience
The Anne K. “Nancy” Jeffrey Endowed Professorship for Mental Health Equity and Resilience
Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research
460 Medical Center Drive
Columbus, OH 43210
Dr. Anthony (Tony) King is a neuroscientist and licensed psychologist / psychotherapist who is committed to clinical and translational research aimed at elucidating processes underlying risk and resilience for mental health. He researches the neurobiological mechanisms underlying effective psychotherapies and is dedicated to developing improved, accessible, neuroscience-based treatments for stress-related disorders like PTSD and depression. Dr, King is the co-Chair of the ENIGMA-Meditation Working group, an international consortium of Meditation and Mindfulness-based intervention research. He is nationally certified in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherpay (CBASP), and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT) and is engaged in clinical trials of ketamine- and psilocybin-assisted therapy for psychiatric patients.
Special Interests
- Psychological Resilience
- Psychedelic- and ketamine-assisted therapy
- Neural mechanisms of PTSD and psychotherapy interventions for stress-related disorders
- Mindfulness- and compassion-based interventions for depression and PTSD
- Neuroimaging and large-scale neural network connectivity
Dr. King is focused on advancing the design, testing and implementation of effective, efficient, accessible neuroscience-based psychotherapy interventions for psychiatric disorders, as well as empirically supported approaches for nurturing resilience and mind-body and positive psychology interventions for people exposed to adversity and stressful life events.
He uses functional MRI neuroimaging, EEG, psychophysiological and epigenomic tools and approaches to work on understanding the neural mechanisms within psychotherapies for PTSD and depression, including cognitive-behavioral, mindfulness-based, and psychedelic treatments.
Dr. King researches the effects of lifespan and early life adversity on the brain, autonomic nervous system and stress hormone and immune systems, and has strong interest in how these effects could explain the connection of childhood adversity to substantially elevated health risks. He is a member of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium PTSD Subcommittee and ENIGMA-PGC PTSD
Neuroimaging consortium. Through this work, he seeks to identify ecological and modifiable social, behavioral and cognitive-affective factors that maximize resilience and may support improved interventions.
He is interested in understanding how mind-body educational approaches and interventions like mindfulness, yoga and other traditional and indigenous approaches may be useful for building resilience and buffering or ameliorating effects of adversity in both children and adults, among our patients facing stressful conditions, and in the community.
Dr. King is author/co-author of over 60 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals, and his research has been funded by NIMH, NCCIH, NSF, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Mind and Life Institute.
Education
- MS: Rutgers University (APA Accreditation), Clinical Psychology
- PhD: University of Michigan, Molecular and Integrative Physiology
- PhD: Fielding Graduate University (APA Accreditation), Clinical Psychology
- Clinical psychology internship: Mary A. Rackham Institute, University of Michigan (APA Accreditation)
- Clinical psychology fellowship: University of Michigan Psychological Clinic
- Clinical lecturer: Anxiety Disorders Program, Dept. Psychiatry, University of Michigan