The National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) has awarded four Health Science Center researchers the Young Investigator award, totaling $240,000.
The Young Investigator Award Program provides support for the most promising young scientists conducting neurobiological research. To receive one of NARSAD’s Young Investigator awards, the research must be relevant to schizophrenia, major affective disorders or other serious mental illness. The $60,000 grants will be given to the researchers over a period of two years.
The Health Science Center’s four award recipients and brief synopses of their work are below:
Saloua Benmansour, Ph.D., instructor in the department of pharmacology, aims to study how the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) may be working on the serotonin pathway in the brain and leads to the antidepressant effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
Sheila Caetano, M.D., research fellow in the department of psychiatry, plans to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) to determine if reduced levels of N-acetyl aspirate (NAA) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is associated with bipolar disorder.
Emel Serap Monkul, M.D., research fellow in the department of psychiatry, aims to study with a new MRI technique whether regional abnormalities in myelin, the white matter insulating nerves, occur in bipolar patient brains.
Conseulo Walss-Bass, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the department of psychiatry, will sequence the neuregulin and G72 schizophrenia candidate genes in order to identify unique genetic variations in the Costa Rican population.
