illness win grant support
The National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NAR-SAD) is providing almost $700,000 this year to 11 Yale and affiliated researchers to study causes and treatment for mental illness.
NARSAD is the largest donor-supported organization in the world devoted exclusively to funding scientific research on psychiatric disorders. Among the topics it is supporting at Yale are the genetics of schizophrenia; brain imaging of schizophrenia and bipolar disease; and the biochemistry of fear conditioning in anxiety.
Dr. Sherman Weissman, Sterling Professor of Genetics and Medicine, received one of NARSAD's Distinguished Investigator Awards, which provides support for experienced investigators conducting neurobiological research with a particular interest in patient populations with unique or unusual characteristics and innovative projects that might not otherwise receive funding.
Weissman will apply an emerging technology called Genomic Tiling Microarrays to research 22q11 deletion syndrome-associated schizophrenia. About 25% to 30% of patients with this syndrome also develop schizophrenia.
The 10 other Yale recipients received two-year Young Investigator awards, which provide support for the most promising young scientists conducting neurobiological research relevant to schizophrenia, major affective disorders or other serious mental illnesses. The Yale winners from the School of Medicine are:
Vince Calhoun, who is both on the staff of the Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale, aims to use fMRI brain imaging to distinguish between people with schizophrenia and those with bipolar disorder to help differentiate the conditions.
Dr. Hyun-Sang Cho, postdoctoral associate in psychiatry at the Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, proposes studying in humans whether nicotine improves the deficits in attention and information processing induced by a drug that blocks the NMDA receptor.
Dr. Arie Kaffman, a medical school researcher, will use a mouse model to study the effect of postnatal maternal care (PMC) on neurogenesis -- the regrowth of neurons in the brain -- and determine whether some of the behavioral conditions of poor PMC are due to its ability to modify this process.
Evelyn Lambe, postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry, will study the prefrontal cortex, which is the target of the ascending arousal pathway and is critically involved in attention. Patterns of activation within this region are disordered in patients with schizophrenia and depression, particularly during cognitive tasks.
Sherry McKee, assistant professor of psychiatry, will study the effects of mecamylamine, a nicotine acetylcholine receptor antagonist, on smoking behavior and resultant nicotine plasma levels at baseline and after nicotine abstinence in schizophrenic and healthy control smokers matched for cigarette use and nicotine dependence.
Dr. Peter Morgan, a researcher at the Connecticut Mental Health Center and Yale, proposes studying why some people with schizophrenia are susceptible to alcoholism and relapse. Results could lead to a greater understanding of alcoholism in schizophrenia and to more effective treatments.
Surojit Paul, associate research scientist at the Child Study Center, proposes studying in the rat a particular aspect of the biochemistry of fear conditioning in the amygdala, a region of the brain known to play a central role in both normal fear and pathological anxiety.
Golan Shahar, assistant professor of psychiatry and lecturer in psychology, aims to study hopelessness depression, a subtype of depression, and its role in psychosis. Findings should have the potential to illuminate the course, correlates, assessment, and intervention of depression, a prevalent but poorly understood complicating factor in psychosis.
Dr. James E. Swain, postdoctoral associate at the Child Study Center, will use fMRI to examine the role the limbic-hypothalamic midbrain circuits play in postpartum depression. The work could lead to larger projects to study parents with other postpartum psychiatric illnesses and to gather information on long-term infant outcome and interventions.
Min Wang, postdoctoral associate in neurobiology, proposes studying in monkeys the role of dopamine receptors in the prefrontal cortex for working memory deficits, which are implicated in the cognitive dysfunctions and pathogenesis of schizophrenia.
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