Diagnosing a Crisis: Psychiatric Drug Development

by Steven E. Hyman, M.D.

Cerebrum

 Cerebrum - April 2013 
When it comes to funding drug research to treat depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders, the global pharmaceutical industry prefers to invest its research dollars in cancer, metabolism, autoimmunity, and other disease areas. This comes despite the fact that one in five Americans currently take at least one psychiatric drug and that mental disorders are recognized worldwide.  The author traces the evolution of psychiatric drug development, the reasons for its retreat, and what needs to change to meet the growing demand.

Report on Progress

Waking Up from Coma: New Treatments, New Hope

by Clifford B. Saper, MD, PhD

Small-scale studies suggest that some patients can in fact “awaken from a coma,” sometimes even after many years. These studies stimulate us to do more research to find out which patients may benefit, from which treatments, and at which stages of recovery. One of our series of Reports on Progress.

News

President Unveils US Initiative to Map the Human Brain

National Institutes of Health

President Obama announced a broad new research initiative, starting with $100 million in 2014, to invent and refine new technologies to understand the human brain. [off-site link]

News

Brain Reacts Differently to Internal vs. External Threats

by Kayt Sukel

Researchers find people who can not anticipate fear because of a rare disease can still experience it in real-time. This suggests a more-complex role for the amygdala and other fear-sensing circuits.

Dying to Regrow
Q&A

Dying to Regrow

Dissecting the Role of Programmed Cell Death in Spinal Cord Regeneration

by Brenda Patoine

Traditionally viewed as a process that needs to be turned off in spinal cord injury, programmed cell death may, in fact, play a critical role in axon regeneration. This Q&A with Aravinthan Samuel, Ph.D., is the latest in a series of interviews with Dana grantees.

News

Therapygenetics

by Carl Sherman

Researchers are starting to explore links between genetic variation and a how a person responds to certain psychiatric therapies. Perhaps someday your doctor will say, "There's an X probablility you'll respond to this therapy."

News

Can Hyperbaric Oxygen Repair the Damaged Brain?

by Kayt Sukel

High-pressure doses of rich oxygen can improve brain function in injured animals, but early research is mixed in humans. Is it the pressure? The extra oxygen? Or simply a placebo effect?

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Review: How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden

by Silvia A. Bunge, Ph.D.

Cerebrum

Are children from underserved communities doomed to fail? Paul Tough's new book, "How Children Succeed," examines whether character is more important than cognition and what is possible through ideas and innovation. 

Connectivity—A Primer

by Carl Sherman

With a growing appreciation of its centrality to brain function, and the emergence of technology to illuminate its intricacies, connectivity has become a major focus of neuroscience research.

See also

The Brain's Recovery from Stroke
Column

The Brain's Recovery from Stroke

by Guy McKhann, M.D.

Brain in the News

Why does one person recover from a stroke but another doesn't? A new study looks at the cellular mechanisms of recovery.

See also

Report on Progress

Brain-Machine Interface

A multi-disciplinary approach shows progress

by Apostolos P. Georgopoulos, M.D., Ph.D.

Advances are being made in all fronts including: recording methods; extracting information from brain signals; perfecting prosthetic arms; and creating the perfect intercommunication between brain and the prosthetic arm. One of our series of Reports on Progress.

Upcoming New York Neuroscience Events


Brainwave: The sixth edition of Brainwave enlists the aid of neuroscientists to help us understand how the perception of our world is shaped by the surprising adaptability of our brains – February-April at the Rubin Museum.

Targeting Insulin Resistance for the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease: From Laboratory to the Clinic: Insulin resistance and dysregulated insulin signaling are observed in brains of Alzheimer's patients. Current diabetes drugs that improve cognition and brain insulin signaling in rodents are in clinical trials for mild cognitive impairment and AD – April 23 at NYAS.

Translating Natural Products into Drugs for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Disease: This conference explores drug discovery from natural products, including novel approaches and technologies, and promising Alzheimer’s drug discovery programs – May 6 at NYAS.

Social and Emotional Learning: Preparing Our Children to Excel: Join us to learn about the recent trends in education to foster social and emotional learning in classrooms is aimed at nurturing such fundamental traits as self-control, focus and perseverance in children – May 13 at NYAS.

Targeting Epigenetic Regulators for Cancer Therapy: This symposium reviews epigenetic regulators in cancer development and progress in designing therapies targeting the epigenome – May 24 at NYAS.

Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy: New basic science and clinical findings relevant to the pathogenesis, mitigation, cure, and risk stratification of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy will support a discussion of current challenges and future directions for PML treatment – June 19-20 at NYAS.

NIH National Research Study Recruitment Registry 

The user-friendly site ResearchMatch.org connects people who want to participate in clinical trials with researchers conducting studies in an array of diseases.

The NIH also sponsors the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study, which seeks volunteers having the very earliest complaints of memory problems that affect their daily activities. See  a list of locations and how to contact the researchers.  

The Alzheimer's Association hosts a more-general  Find a Clinical Trial page for patients, healthy volunteers, doctors, and others.


Rolling Grant Submission

Clinical Neuroscience Research