Research Areas

1. ADHD Treatment Patterns & Outcomes ⭐ PRIMARY FOCUS

Focus: Understanding who receives ADHD treatment, how medications are prescribed, and real-world outcomes in children, adolescents, and adults.

Key Questions:

  • What are national trends in ADHD medication prescribing?
  • Which youth receive appropriate vs. questionable psychotropic combinations?
  • Do ADHD medications protect against real-world adverse outcomes (accidents, arrests, substance use)?
  • How do treatment patterns differ by demographics, insurance, and region?

Methods:

  • Analysis of large administrative claims databases (IQVIA, MarketScan, Medicaid)
  • Electronic health record (EHR) natural language processing
  • Psychopharmacoepidemiology

Major Finding: Swedish study analysis showing ADHD medications linked with 30-50% lower rates of accidents and arrests—landmark evidence for protective effects beyond symptom control.

Publications:

Active Studies:

Funding: NIH/NIMH, Columbia Research Stabilization Fund

2. Cannabis Use Disorders in Adolescents ⭐ PRIMARY FOCUS

Focus: Examining patterns of cannabis use among U.S. adolescents, mental health consequences, and intervention strategies, particularly addressing "nondisordered" use below diagnostic thresholds.

Key Questions:

  • What are the mental health risks of cannabis use even without meeting addiction criteria?
  • How does cannabis access vary by retailer type (licensed vs. unlicensed)?
  • What product labeling issues exist in the current cannabis market?
  • How can we intervene early before cannabis use disorder develops?

Groundbreaking Discovery: "Casual" or "recreational" cannabis use—without meeting addiction criteria—affects 2.5 million US teens and carries significant mental health risks (2x higher depression, 2x higher suicidal ideation, 4x higher arrests) previously overlooked by researchers.

Publications:

Active Study:

Funding: NIDA K12 Career Development Award (2021-2026, $670K)

3. Digital Therapeutics: PAWS Project ⭐ MAJOR INITIATIVE

Project Name: PAWS (Pawsitive Companion)
Role: Dr. Sultan is Multi-Principal Investigator (MPI)
Grant: UG3/UH3 (NIH/NIDA)
Focus: AI-based digital therapeutic for cannabis use disorder in youth

Innovation: PAWS transforms evidence-based cannabis use disorder (CUD) treatment into engaging acts of caring for a digital pet—specifically designed to reach youth in underserved areas where specialized addiction care is inaccessible.

Dr. Sultan's Responsibilities as MPI:

  • Clinical-Informatics Integration: Translating CUD treatment protocols into algorithmic logic for the AI agent
  • Youth Engagement: Overseeing recruitment and retention at NYSPI, leveraging dual training in child and adult psychiatry
  • Data Analysis: Co-leading analysis of both feasibility (UG3) and efficacy (UH3) trials

Why This Matters: This project represents a pivotal step in applying scalable technology to resolve critical access barriers in youth addiction treatment. Adolescents using cannabis "casually" have been invisible to screening and intervention—this research reveals an at-risk population 4x larger than those with diagnosed cannabis use disorder.

Collaborators:

  • Dr. Xu - Technical Architecture Lead
  • Dr. Frances Levin - Clinical Trial Regulatory Framework Lead

4. Psychopharmacology Safety & Prescribing

Focus: Improving safety and understanding of psychiatric medications through research on prescribing patterns, adverse events, and regulatory changes.

Key Contributions:

Clozapine Monitoring Research: Dr. Sultan's work on clozapine-associated hematologic events contributed to FDA policy changes dismantling restrictive clozapine REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy) guidelines, potentially increasing access to this uniquely effective medication for treatment-resistant schizophrenia.

Publications:

5. Evolutionary Psychiatry

Focus: Understanding psychiatric conditions through an evolutionary lens—examining why traits that cause impairment in modern environments may have been adaptive in ancestral contexts.

Key Questions:

  • Why do ADHD traits persist at high rates despite their challenges?
  • What is the mismatch between modern environments and human evolutionary history?
  • How can understanding evolutionary origins inform treatment?

Public Engagement: Dr. Sultan discussed evolutionary ADHD on the Hacking Your ADHD podcast, explaining the hunter-gatherer hypothesis and mismatch theory.

Lab Page: Evolutionary Psychiatry Research Area

Related Content: Is ADHD Evolutionary? The Hunter-Gatherer Theory

Research Methods & Expertise

The Sultan Lab employs cutting-edge computational psychiatry methods:

Mental Health Informatics

Epidemiologic Methods

Clinical Trial Design

Research Impact

Publications & Citations

Metric Count
Total Citations 411+
Peer-Reviewed Publications 40+
H-Index 15+
First-Author Papers 15+
JAMA/JAACAP/Pediatrics Pubs 5

Most Cited Work: Antipsychotic Treatment Among Youths with ADHD (JAMA Network Open, 2019) - 411 citations, establishing foundational evidence for prescribing practices in pediatric populations.

View Complete Publication List →

Policy Impact

Media & Public Engagement

View Media Coverage → | Listen to Podcast Appearances →

Active Funding

Total Active Funding: $670,000+

Research Stabilization Fund (Columbia University) - PI

Period: 06/2025-06/2026
Purpose: Bridge funding for early-career research; supports ongoing analyses of ADHD treatment patterns in large datasets

NIDA K12 Substance Use Clinical Scientist Career Development Award - Scholar/PI

Period: 07/2021-06/2026
Institutions: Columbia University & Mass General/Harvard
Focus: Patterns and outcomes of adolescent substance use and ADHD-related risk behaviors
Mentor: Frances Levin, MD

Past Funding

NIMH T32 Translational Research Fellowship (2016-2019)
Postdoctoral training in child psychiatry research at Columbia

AACAP Elaine Schlosser Lewis Award (2016-2017)
Pilot research on attention disorders and disruptive behavior

View Complete Grant History →

Lab Team

Current Team Size: 7 researchers

Principal Investigator

Ryan S. Sultan, MD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Director, Sultan Lab for Mental Health Informatics

Training:

Board Certifications:

Collaborators

Internal (Columbia):

External:

Lab positions (postdoc, research assistant) occasionally available - contact lab for opportunities

Lab Resources & Databases

Data Sources

Computational Resources

Contact & Opportunities

Research Inquiries

Lab Director: rs0000@columbia.edu
Institution: Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry
Address: 1051 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10032

Collaboration Opportunities

The Sultan Lab welcomes collaborations with:

Training Opportunities

The lab occasionally has positions for:

Contact lab director for current availability

ADHD Resources

ADHD Expertise
ADHD Guide
Evolutionary ADHD
ADHD Paralysis
ADHD Assessment

Research & Lab

Sultan Lab
Publications
Research Grants
Columbia Role

Media & Contact

Podcasts
Media Coverage
About Dr. Sultan
Contact