New Permian Basin Chair Seeks to Develop International Hub for Rural Psychiatry

• By Mark Hendricks
• April 7, 2025
• Research

Rajendra Badgaiyan, M.D., has more than two decades of service as faculty member, professor and psychiatry department chair at institutions such as Harvard Medical School, University of Minnesota, San Antonio VA Medical Center and, most recently, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Armed with those experiences, and a unique brain imaging technique, Badgaiyan joined the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) School of Medicine in November as a professor and Department of Psychiatry chair at the Permian Basin campus. 

“I decided to move to the Permian Basin because this region is an underserved mental health area and needs a better mental health care delivery system,” Badgaiyan said. “Patients in this and other underserved areas have unique problems that are not seen in other areas. Because of the lack of access to mental health services, patients in this area often present at an advanced stage and many of them are resistant to treatment.”

Badgaiyan said this problem is compounded by the stigma that is prevalent in rural areas when it comes to mental illnesses. Because of the stigma, rural residents tend to deny illness and avoid seeking help. Badgaiyan is interested in studying these unique problems and developing a plan to resolve them. Part of that plan includes establishing a model of care and a system of delivering mental health services that can be replicated in most, if not all underserved areas and a plan to increase access to mental health services. 

“As a part of that plan, we are trying to increase the number of qualified psychiatrists in the region,” Badgaiyan said. “Beginning this year, we have increased the number of psychiatry residents from 16 to 32 and we plan to increase the number even more in the next few years. We hope that most of the graduating residents will stay in the area to serve people in the Permian Basin region.”

To enable these residents better understand the problems unique to the Permian Basin, Badgaiyan is helping the department add a rural track to the psychiatry residency training program. Once developed, it will be one of the very few programs in the country that focuses on treating people in underserved areas such as the Permian Basin.

“We are also encouraging a research focus on the problems that are unique to the region and we hope to build an alternate model for mental health treatment in rural and under-served areas,” Badgaiyan added.

After completing his residency training at Harvard Medical School, Badgaiyan joined the faculty at Harvard and several other academic centers. He has clinical and research interests related to mental health, and that interest led him to develop a unique brain imaging technique—known as the single scan dynamic neurotransmitter imaging, or dynamic neurotransmitter imaging—that helps uncover why some people suffer from mental illness.

“This technique allows us to detect, map and measure the amount of neurotransmitters released in the live human brain at rest and during performance of a mental function,” Badgaiyan explained. “It therefore helps us to understand how different neurochemicals control these functions and how these chemicals are altered in different psychiatric and neurological conditions. Based on this knowledge, better and more effective therapeutic approach can be developed for these conditions.”

Since the technique can detect deficits in the brain chemicals at a very early preclinical stage, Badgaiyan said it allows initiation of treatment before the disease disables a patient. 

“Using this technique, we have discovered new targets to treat a number of mental illnesses,” Badgaiyan said. “We have also used this technique to predict whether an individual is likely to develop a mental condition in future.”

Badgaiyan has published more than 300 peer-reviewed research papers and is an editor for several international journals. He also has published a book (“Neuroscience of the Nonconscious Mind”) and has received several awards, including the Solomon Prize from Harvard University and the B.K. Anand National Research Prize in India. His research focuses on addiction and dysregulation of dopamine neurotransmission in psychiatric and neurological conditions.

As the Department of Psychiatry chair, Badgaiyan wants to bring latest cutting-edge treatment modalities to the Permian Basin. He has plans to organize an annual international conference on rural psychiatry and publish a per-reviewed journal on the same topic. 

“My primary focus as a chair will be to implement the best clinical practices, increase mental health work force, conduct research to identify problem unique to the region and develop a model of mental health care and delivery system that can be implemented in all underserved areas,” Badgaiyan said. “My goal is to make the department an international hub for the study of rural psychiatry in the next 3 to 5 years.”