My son was first diagnosed with a debilitating form of bipolar disorder when he was 19. His diagnosis was changed eight years later to schizophrenia and he died at the age of 27 and a half.

Alan began to exhibit signs of obsessive behavior in junior high school. In high school, though he was in all honors classes in a very advanced private school, had trouble completing his assignments on time and being ready to go anywhere on time. The car pool was always waiting for him!

But it was when he was a sophomore at Yeshiva University that things took a dark turn. Alan began to sleep all day, not go to classes, and he even stopped eating. We received calls from his friends in the dorm telling us that something was very wrong with him. We took him out of school for a long Thanksgiving recess break and had an evaluation done by the Chief of Psychiatry at St. Barnabas Hospital in Livingston, NJ. It was there Alan was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  The doctor advised us to take Alan out of school with a leave of absence, and have him begin therapy immediately. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there were no medications that existed that could help him in the long-term. There is still much work to be done in terms of research breakthroughs and medications. It was only after Alan’s death that I learned how low a priority fund-raising is for mental illness – it is the “step child” of all fund-raising endeavors, even at the Congressional level.

So I decided to organize my own annual fundraiser, A Walk for a Cure, back in May 2001, and looked around for an organization to donate funds to. A good friend of mine, Janet Reckenbeil,  gave me a NY Times clipping of a wonderful article that talked about the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (then called NARSAD), and the rest is history.

The psychiatrist wanted to put Alan on medication ─ Alan fought it for a long while, but finally agreed. We quickly learned that until the right combination was found, each medication could exacerbate the symptoms it was meant to alleviate. We finally found an effective combination with lithium as the catalyst.

Lithium enabled Alan to return to college, read and focus again, and ultimately graduate, going on to get a great job. Unfortunately, this medication began to attack his kidneys and he had to be taken off of it. His doctor was never able to find an adequate substitute.

Because people often mask the signs of mental illness, some of my friends thought Alan was faking it and that I was spoiling him, and even refused to accept his diagnosis. It wasn’t until Alan died that those around him accepted the truth.

One devastating night in 2000, the police department called and gave us the news every parent dreads: that our son had been in a terrible accident, and to come to the police department as soon as possible. On the ride to the police department, I kept asking why we weren’t going to the hospital, but I soon learned why. My beautiful private school-educated son had jumped to his death from the roof of his apartment building. He was just 27 and a half years old.

Once I returned to work after a period of mourning, my colleagues greeted me and told me that they were going to help me heal ─ and they did! Part of my healing process after Alan died was to take their suggestion to write a book. The solitary, healing exercise brought back happy memories of raising Alan, which had been eclipsed by all the years of his illness. I wrote the dedication “in loving memory to my son Alan who always wanted to do the right thing and have all of those whom he knew and loved do the right thing as well.”

People still view mental illness as something that only the homeless or criminals have. The only way to change this is to share stories of people like my son, and to let others know that mental illness can strike anyone – your mother, your sister, your best friend, your son. That’s why I want to keep fighting and tell others to keep fighting mental illness, and keep raising money for the wonderful research that is funded by NARSAD Grants.

Carrie Bearden, Ph.D.

2003/2005 NARSAD Young Investigator Grantee
Associate Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Psychology,
Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior,
University of Califonia, Los Angeles 

I was very pleased to read Dr. Adrian Preda’s recent blog posting focused on ‘exercising the brain’. I have become increasingly excited about the potential for aerobic exercise to boost neuroplasticity (i.e., the ability of the nervous system to respond to stimuli by reorganizing its structure, function and connections), and thus improve our capacity to learn. One study that I find particularly exciting is this one by Aberg and colleagues:  a Swedish population cohort study of over 1 million men, in which not only was cardiovascular fitness positively associated with intelligence at age 18, but cardiovascular fitness changes between age 15 and 18 years predicted cognitive performance at age 18.  This suggests that making these lifestyle changes can have positive and beneficial lasting effects for cognitive functioning.  I have been diving into this literature full-force as I am preparing a new intervention grant for our clinical research program for adolescents suffering from schizophrenia. I am hopeful this intervention may have the potential to really improve the lives of these teens.

The more we study it, the more it becomes clear that the adult brain is incredibly plastic. While neurogenesis is a special form of neuroplasticity, there are other mechanisms of synaptic plasticity that are less well studied, In particular, I am interested in myelination – the white matter fiber tracts in the brain – as a mechanism for synaptic plasticity (this is a great review by Fields, if you are interested!). Recently, several studies have shown large-scale changes in structural and functional connectivity in the brain in a period of just a few weeks as a function of learning a new skill, like juggling or learning to play golf. These findings of learning-related functional brain plasticity, occurring throughout the lifespan, are incredibly exciting.

There are also periods of development- sensitive periods – like the teenage years, in which the brain is particularly dynamic. I spoke about this last Thursday night at the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Sage Hill Event: The Teenage Mind: What Every Parent Needs to Know . Adolescence is also a period of significant vulnerability for the development of mood disorder, substance abuse, and other psychopathology. How can we harness this increased neuroplasticity to achieve lasting clinical change? What are some lifestyle interventions that might actually make a difference?  These are all key issues which I think we are making important strides toward addressing, but clearly there is a lot more work to be done. At the very least, the rising tide of evidence for brain plasticity offers promise for the possibility of changing and rewiring the brain.

Katrina C. Johnson, Ph.D

NARSAD Young Investigator Grantee Katrina C. Johnson, Ph.D. presented the ‘Taking Strides Against Mental Illness’ Lecture in October at the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Mental Health Research Symposium in New York City. In the lecture, Dr. Johnson talks about her research at Emory University, where she researches infant brain activity to better understand bipolar disorder. Dr. Johnson studies infant emotion regulation strategies – emotional responses that may or may not fall within the conventionally accepted range of emotive response. She then seeks to identify how these responses may relate to bipolar disorder, with the goal of gaining more understanding of the underlying brain mechanisms involved in bipolar disorder for people of all ages.

About the ‘Taking Strides Against Mental Illness’ Lecture:

Harryet and Stuart Ehrlich are determined to help bring about a future in which people like their daughter Rebecca Ehrlich  do not spend a lifetime struggling with the devastating symptoms of bipolar disorder. Each year, the Ehrlichs lead a benefit walk called ‘Taking Strides Against Mental Illness’. The proceeds go to the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. They also participate in the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Research Partners Program and the Lecture Sponsor Program. The ‘Taking Strides Against Mental Illness’ Lecture’ is presented annually by a NARSAD Grantee.

Benita Shobe

by Benita Shobe
President & CEO, Brain & Behavior Research Foundation

2011 was an impressive year of progress as NARSAD Grant-funded discoveries spanned brain and behavior disorders – including schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders including OCD and PTSD and autism. Our Scientific Council selects the most promising ideas to fund each year, across research disciplines, institutions and communities. In the sampling of work presented below, you will discover proven next generation therapies, innovative  early intervention techniques and promise for improved diagnostic tools, groundbreaking basic research to further  our understanding of how the brain functions and can malfunction, and the continued refinement of new technologies to significantly advance our progress.

Please click on our orange neuron logo below and explore our interactive 2011 Research Highlights page. As always, thank you for joining in our shared commitment to alleviate the suffering caused by mental illness. We will continue to share our progress with you – check for news updates weekly on our web site front page – throughout this New Year that is already proving very productive!

CLICK ORANGE SPARK FOR INTERACTIVE 2011 HIGHLIGHTS!

Me (Rob) and my kids Hannah, Daniel and Rachel

By Rob Laitman
Runner, Father, Donor – Brain & Behavior Research Foundation

Five years ago my son Daniel was diagnosed with schizophrenia and our lives were turned upside down. He was just starting his sophomore year of high school when he was diagnosed and was in and out of hospital day programs for much of that year. Over the next 2 years we would see many doctors and Daniel would be on many different medications. While he is now on a medical regimen that he is doing well on, and while he finished high school on time in a great program and is now in community college, we all long for the day when his disease will be cured, not just kept under control. He still has symptoms most days and has learned to live with them, but we would love for him to be free of “the voices”.

Last January, Daniel, Daniel’s sister Hannah, their cousin Joey, and myself ran the Disney World Half-Marathon together and raised almost $15,000 for the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.  That was just the beginning! On January 7,2012, we did it again.  We participated again in the Disney Half Marathon, and I ran the full marathon the next day. The weekend was great! Hannah, Daniel, Rachel and I finished the half marathon in about 2 hrs 37 minutes…..Rachel has not run for almost a year, but she finished! I completed the full marathon in 3 hours and 19 minutes, which is faster than I planned – I felt great!

We all know someone with a mental illness and we can all be part of the search to find better treatments and cures for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and eating disorders and the many other types of mental illness that are out there. I hope they never affect you, but chances are that one of them will touch you or someone you love. Help us to raise funds for research and you be part of the cure!

We aren’t finished! There are more marathons this year. Would you like to join us? Whether or not you are a runner, I would like to invite you to support Team Daniel and TeamUp!  Please share this blog link with family and friends, make a donation, or even better, join us in a run! (See our schedule below.) I am really hoping to recruit more Team members. What an inspiration it would be to see a sea of Team Daniel / BBRF tee shirts running in the marathon!

I personally offer to support runners up to $1000 if they raise at least $5000 for the Foundation.  I will do this up to 10 runners. 

For more information about joining Team Daniel please email my wife Ann or myself: Ann Laitman at anncmandel@aol.com or Robert Laitman at rslaitman@aol.com.

Team Daniel marathons in support of Brain & Behavior Research Foundation:
•    Boston Marathon, April 2012
•    New Jersey Marathon, May 2012
•    New York Marathon, November 2012

We are in the lottery for…
•    Chicago, Illinois
•    St. George, Utah

Please enjoy this video “Grateful” –  written and performed by my daughter Rachel Laitman:

Me (Dolores) and my son Todd

This is a true story about what happened to a family when mental illness struck one of its children.

My son Todd Christopher O’Connell was born April 18, 1965. It was an Easter Sunday. Everyone said “Todd is going to be special because he was born on Easter Sunday.” And special he was. He was gifted and talented. He was an honor student and showed such promising potential in art, poetry and early language skills. He was reading at three years old. Everyone was amazed at his precociousness.

Unfortunately, a few weeks after his 18^th birthday, Todd became mentally ill. For the next 26 years he was in and out of mental institutions and treatment programs. He was a complicated mixture of schizophrenia and bipolar, with severe paranoia. Todd took lots of medicines, but nothing ever seemed to work. Todd often referred to himself as a tortured soul.

Now his suffering is over. He made a deliberate choice not to go on. Todd is at peace.

I will miss my son every day, as will his brother Brett. He was our soldier. He marched proudly with a debilitating disease until he could march no more.

None of us have surfaced “the same.” There has been growth and enlightenment, along with regression and submission. There have been so many conflicts of emotion amongst us that it is difficult to name them all.

I tell our story, however, because every day other people are beginning their journey. My heart aches for them and my prayers are with them. I want these mothers and fathers to know that they are not alone. There are others that share their pain, and understand their anger.

I believe the answer is in science. The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation makes it possible for scientific research to be done and for new treatments to be created, so that people like my son Todd will not have to suffer the despair and anguish of mental illness.

I want people to know in the depths of despair and hopelessness, a strength and life can reinvent itself. You can ride it out. Is that advice? I wouldn’t dare. I took the hard road, the long road, and I only want to say when you feel that you can’t go on, you can, because you will. And then you won’t be “you,” you will become a different “you,” a new “you.” And then you will join a different world, the world of “seeing, caring, and knowing,” not a world you would have chosen, but a world that has chosen you. Through this you’ll find an inner strength and wisdom that can only come from having been there.

My Todd

I’m So Proud of my Todd
by Dolores Emory

I’m so proud of my Todd
He is a winner with a loser disease
He recognizes and works hard with doctors
On regulating his meds.

Everyone at the board and care love him.
He’s generous, kind, thoughtful and happy.

He helps others.
He has not lost his memory and he cares about the young people that come and go from the
board and care. He knows everyone’s medicines and diagnosis, including his own.
He has found the strength to give up the street drugs.
It was hard.
I ought to know.

Now when we go to lunch on Saturdays we enjoy each other,
we talk rationally
we talk lovingly about the past.

It’s amazing how the right doctor and the right board and care can take away a lot of the worry and pain.

I’m so proud of my Todd.
Each day he faces the day with new hope,
new promise.
He follows the cures with interest.

He is at peace at Casa with Barbara.
And that gives me peace.
It has been a long journey and there are still times that I resent it.
If Todd feels that way he never mentions it,
I’m so very proud of him.

At this point I might ask God for the things to make his life complete.

                        The first is that his father would visit and embrace him.

            The other is that the Rolling Stones would stop by.

After all I’ve purchased their tapes over and over and over.
I believe I have purchased Beggars’ Banquet 100 times alone.
In the days when Todd kept giving them away, and trading them.

Those days are over. And I’m so very, very proud of my son.

Todd

The NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grant is the largest grant awarded by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, and provides up to $100,000 for a one-year study per scientist. Distinguished Investigator Grantees (we like to call them “D.I.’s” for short!) already have a proven record of extraordinary research accomplishments and receive the grant to pursue a novel or innovative research idea.

Meet some of the brilliant 2011 NARSAD Grantees:

Kelsey C. Martin, M.D., Ph.D.

Kelsey C. Martin, M.D., Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles: “I am fortunate to have received research support from NARSAD Grants throughout my career, as a Young and Independent Investigator, and now a Distinguished Investigator. At each step, NARSAD Grant-funding has allowed me to explore new directions and ideas in my research. My lab uses basic molecular and cell biological approaches to understand how experience changes the circuitry of the brain and NARSAD Grants have allowed us to more directly consider our studies in the context of human mental illness. While I am convinced that cures to neuropsychiatric disease are most likely to come from a mechanistic understanding of nervous system function, the gap between basic neuroscience and psychiatry can be daunting. Through its support research aimed at understanding mental illness from a breadth of perspectives, The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, with its NARSAD Grants, narrows that gap.”

Ralph E. Hoffman, M.D.

Ralph E. Hoffman, M.D., Yale University School of Medicine, Yale University: “In spite of advances in drug therapies and other approaches over the past 20 years, I continue to see the terrible devastation of [schizophrenia] time and time again ─ where talented, intelligent young people become hugely challenged with the burden of bizarre and disruptive experiences, with lost capacity in terms of school, work and social function.  Although there have been incremental advances in understanding various aspects of this illness, there has been no breakout finding that has lead to a more definitive treatment.  I would like to try to do something about that. Second, I believe that figuring out the basis of schizophrenia will also provide deep insights into how the brain works normally ─ how large populations of unintelligent neurons on their own connect and interact to generate ideas, language, emotions and social knowledge that make us human.”

 “This NARSAD Grant has enabled me to launch a new research direction examining brain mechanisms causing schizophrenia. Our approach is based on a combined artificial neural network simulation / human narrative memory study by our group suggesting a new illness model of schizophrenia. The model predicts that aberrant neuroplasticity during consolidation of autobiographical memories intermingles and corrupts these memories thereby producing delusions and derailed narratives (Hoffman et al. Biological Psychiatry 2011). The NARSAD Grant will enable us for the first time to test this hypothesis directly in brain using functional MRI. This is a very exciting prospect because the hypothesis provides a detailed roadmap of how schizophrenia might develop during late adolescence and early adulthood, and, if confirmed, would suggest new approaches to treatment.” 

Michael S. Fanselow, Ph.D.

Michael S. Fanselow, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles: “It has always been amazing to me how a single experience can radically and permanently change brain function. When these changes have such an adverse effect on people, as happens in PTSD, it becomes urgent for us to understand what happens and what needs to be done to restore normal adaptive function. Obviously the NARSAD Grant is a tremendous honor. The project will allow us to pursue and develop new avenues of research we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Specifically, it should recognize that fear normally serves a critical function and is a necessary adaptation. But experiences that provoke PTSD lead to nonadaptive function in those normally beneficial circuits. The Foundation is giving us the opportunity to directly compare the ensemble of neural activity that leads to both adaptive and nonadaptive fear and to see what is similar and dissimilar about that neural activity.”

Stephen R. Marder, M.D.

Stephen R. Marder, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles: “The NARSAD Grant will allow me to begin a new area of research. In recent years I have focused on strategies for improving the ability of people with schizophrenia to improve their social interactions. For many of these people, difficulties in interpreting social signals have had serious effects on their ability to succeed at jobs, school, and rehabilitation programs. My research will focus on studying promising medications such as oxytocin which may improve the ability of patients to improve their social skills during a training program.”

Read more about the entire D.I. Class of 2011 HERE.

David J. Miklowitz, Ph.D., NARSAD Distinguished Investigator has been researching bipolar disorder for over twenty years. He is currently professor of psychiatry in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Dr. Miklowitz’s most recent research focuses the effects of family intervention on people living with bipolar disorder. He developed a treatment called family-focused therapy which combines family intervention with medication and hopes that this method will ultimately help prevent the onset of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents who are genetically at risk.

“What we’re hoping to do in our clinic and in our research is eventually develop a roadmap for a treatment protocol for adolescents and kids with bipolar disorder.”

This past October, Dr. Miklowitz was awarded the Bipolar Mood Disorders Prize by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. Dr. Miklowitz was awarded this prize for his outstanding achievements working toward improving the lives of the 2.6% of the U.S. Population living with this illness*.
* National Institute of Mental Health

“The implication is clear that psychosis might be a separate diagnosis which has separate risk factors and might also require separate treatments.”

Elena Ivleva, MD., a 2010 NARSAD Young Investigator Grantee, is currently completing the final year of a research residency in psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Dr. Ivleva’s research efforts are primarily directed toward identifying and studying the cognitive, electrophysiological and brain-imaging markers of psychosis in neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and mood disorders, and finding new clinical measures to relieve psychotic symptoms. She has developed sophisticated measures to precisely track her work to identify overlapping and distinguishing characteristics of patients with schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder, also associating these clinical behavioral symptoms with genes. Her brain imaging data should influence diagnostic development and deepen the genetic understanding of psychosis.

“What we’re trying to do in our work is to look at the psychosis as a dimension that cuts across diagnostic categories… Mainly, we’re interested in schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder with an overall goal to identify these biological markers that could underlie the mechanisms of psychosis.”

Dr. Ivleva was the recipient of the Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Prize for Schizophrenia Research at the 2011 Brain & Behavior Research Foundation National Awards Dinner in October. The winner of this prize is selected by this year’s Lieber Prize winner and awarded to a NARSAD Young Investigator Grantee for innovative and promising schizophrenia research.

“What we are trying to understand is how genes translate at the level of brain and behavior. So if we think about how genes influence risk for cancer or heart disease, it’s a very similar approach”

Amanda J. Law, Ph.D. of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) received a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant in 2006 and focuses her research on understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms of genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia. Dr. Law is a senior research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health. Her work has proven to be highly translational and innovative, bridging the gap between basic neuroscience, clinical genetics and clinical pharmacology. Through studies of adult and fetal human postmortem brains, human and rodent cell systems and genetically engineered mice, Dr. Law’s research has provided insight into the role of a key neurodevelopmental pathway in schizophrenia. Her recent work has identified new therapeutic targets within these signaling pathways, research that will likely progress treatments for schizophrenia.

“Research has been my life. There’s never a dull moment. And I really think we have such a tremendous responsibility but we have such tremendous opportunity to make a difference to people who are suffering from these disorders.”

Sharing the honors with Dr. Ivleva, Dr. Law also received a Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Prize for Innovative and Promising Schizophrenia Research this past October from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. She was selected by Dr. Joel Kleinman, also from the NIMH and a 2011 Lieber Prize Winner in schizophrenia research.

Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Scientific Council member, Daniel S. Pine, MD is making groundbreaking discoveries into the causes of mental illness in children and ultimately bringing scientists closer to finding better treatments, preventative measures, and cures. Dr. Pine is Chief of both the Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience and the Emotion and Development Branch in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Intramural Research Program. For the past decade, Dr. Pine has been studying the pathophysiology (physical effects on the body) of anxiety disorders particularly in children but also in adults.

“What gives me the most excitement is getting answers to my questions knowing that those answers might someday make a life for a child even a little bit easier.”

The results of his studies are leading to biological and pharmacological solutions including new treatments for mental illnesses. This past October, Dr. Pine was awarded the Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation for his outstanding achievements in this field.

“We have broken the sound barrier where it is clear now that we can develop treatments that work very rapidly within hours as opposed to having to sit for years and several decades, we only have to wait weeks or months.”

Carlos A. Zarate, M.D., a NARSAD Independent Investigator Grantee (2005), has pioneered revolutionary studies that have led to novel treatments for mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder that begin working much faster than previous options. Dr. Zarate is Chief of Experimental Therapeutics of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University. With a strong focus on the pathophysiology of severe mental illnesses, his goal is to develop better treatments particularly for patients living with depression, bipolar disorder and/or other mood disorders. His research into a drug called Ketamine has resulted in rapid-acting treatments that work within hours and last 3-5 days or more. Because of the speed at which this drug reacts within the body and the duration of its effects, it is possible that emergency room doctors may have a possible treatment for those suffering from depression and acute suicidality.

“For me it’s an exciting time to be a researcher. We didn’t have much of these technologies even a decade ago and now we have all these options and possibilities. And that will definitely, and it has, led to an increased understanding of what are the causes of the illness, maybe what are potentially promising targets to develop better treatments. These things we didn’t have in recent past.”

Dr. Zarate was recognized for this discovery and his career of work at the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation National Awards Dinner in New York City in October. He was awarded the Prize for Bipolar Mood Disorders Research for his outstanding achievements.

Michael E. Goldberg, M.D. has dedicated his life’s career to understanding the way the brain works. Professor of Brain and Behavior in the departments of neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry and ophthalmology at Columbia University, he also directs the Mahoney-Keck Center for Brain and Behavior Research at Columbia University. There, he works with monkeys and through that research has made specific important contributions to understanding the neural processes underlying primate behavior. He established for the first time that visual responses, at the level of the single neuron, could be modulated by non-visual factors such as attention, opening a whole field of physiological exploration of cognitive processes. Last October, Dr. Goldberg was awarded the Goldman-Rakic Prize by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation for his outstanding achievements in Cognitive Neuroscience Research.

“One of the things I was most interested in in college was logic, and I was fascinated by how the brain could create new knowledge – what seemed like new knowledge – in associating and in creativity. And those same characteristics of what I was interested in in human thought, in thinking, are the very elements of thinking that are disturbed in people with schizophrenia.”

Carol A. Tamminga, M.D. is a highly revered member of the schizophrenia research community. She is chair and professor of the department of psychiatry, vice chair for research and chief of translational neuroscience research in schizophrenia at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She seeks to understand how schizophrenia and related disorders arise and to hasten the translation of laboratory discoveries into innovations in clinical care. A major focus of her laboratory is the investigation of the cognitive, occupational and social deficits seen in schizophrenia, for which treatments are still largely nonexistent. This past October, Dr. Tamminga was honored by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation with the Lieber Prize  for her outstanding achievements in Schizophrenia Research.