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 Research & Giving News Article  Award recipients are using new technologies and insights to help explain and diagnose schizophrenia
2008 Klerman Award The Klerman Award, which honors exceptional clinical research by a NARSAD Young Investigator, went to Gabriel de Erausquin, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine, and a recipient of 2004 and 2007 NARSAD Young Investigator grants. He was selected for his development of a method aimed at improving schizophrenia diagnosis by learning to distinguish between factors affecting patients and their relatives. Dr. de Erausquin’s method, involving brain imaging, biochemical studies and behavioral data, is based on the observed prevalence of parkinsonism (symptoms similar to the those of Parkinson’s disease, characterized by tremor, hypokinesia, rigidity, and postural instability) in people with untreated schizophrenia and of deficits in the regulation of the neurotransmitter dopamine seen in patients with schizophrenia, but not in their first-degree relatives. Dr. de Erausquin is conducting his studies with an untreated indigenous population in a remote area of his native Argentina, where he has trained local health workers to detect symptoms of mental illnesses and trained clinical researchers to conduct diagnostic interviews and initiate psychological assessments. NARSAD established the Klerman Award in 1994 in tribute to the late Gerald Klerman, M.D., a noted researcher on depression and scientific mentor at Yale, Harvard and Cornell universities, who headed the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. 2008 Freedman Award The Freedman Award, honoring outstanding basic psychiatric research, was established in 1998 in memory of Daniel X. Freedman, M.D., a pioneer in biological psychiatry. This year’s Freedman Award was presented to Evelyn Lambe, Ph.D., a 2004 NARSAD Young Investigator who is an assistant professor in the departments of physiology and of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Toronto. She was selected for her studies of the neurobiological basis for the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia; specifically, how the neural circuitry of attention is modulated by nicotine and other drugs. Cognitive testing and brain imaging of people with schizophrenia has shown that the drug nicotine not only improves attention, but also increases connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the thalamus, a key sensory relay station. Using a powerful three-dimensional visualizing technique called multiphoton imaging, combined with electrophysiological studies, Dr. Lambe and her colleagues showed that nicotine excites thalamocortical axon terminals in the prefrontal cortex, and that the nicotine effect mimicked that of the arousal chemical hypocretin/orexin, a molecule found naturally in the brain. These studies are providing insight into the potential of nicotinic agonists to improve cognitive function in people with schizophrenia. The Scientific Council also named two other NARSAD grantees to receive honorable mention. They are: M. Margaret Behrens, Ph.D., associate project scientist in the geriatrics division of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Diego. A 2004 NARSAD Young Investigator, Dr. Behrens is studying the role of a particular group of inhibitory nerve cells in the cognitive derangements seen in some disease processes, including schizophrenia, and in aging. Akira Sawa, M.D., Ph.D., is associate professor and director of the Program in Molecular Psychiatry in the departments of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, where he also runs a schizophrenia research program funded by a National Institute of Mental Health Conti Center grant. A 2002 and 2004 NARSAD Young Investigator, he has been working to create a mouse model with which to study the role of the DISC1 (Disrupted-In-Schizophrenia) gene, in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. In 2007, he received NARSAD’s Staglin Award, a three-year grant designated for early-career investigators who are conducting innovative research on the causes and treatment of schizophrenia. |
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