CLINICAL UNIT BASED RESEARCH
Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Program
As director of McLean's Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Program, Dr. Dost Ongur also heads a research aspect of the program with offices located directly above the inpatient unit on the third floor of the Admissions Building. We are interested in chemical, functional, and structural brain abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Our main focus is using neuroimaging techniques to probe the role of the medial prefrontal cortex in these conditions. In collaboration with Dr. Perry Renshaw, we use magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to measure the levels of two major neurotransmitters in the brain, glutamate and GABA (Figure 1).
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We also carry out resting state functional MRI studies to examine abnormalities in neural networks subserving ongoing brain function. Figure 2 shows a set of brain areas that are active at rest and share a similar timecourse of activity. The top row represents the average “resting state network” from a group of 15 healthy controls, the middle row 14 schizophrenia patients, and the bottom row 17 bipolar disorder patients. It is clear that there are broad similarities in the brain areas in this network across conditions, but there are also subtle differences, which we are currently investigating.
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If you are interested in participating in one of our research studies, please call (617) 855-2370. Our two current studies are looking at brain function in schizophrenia using brain imaging and genetic linkage study in Bipolar Disorder. Assisting Dr. Ongur with the research is Dr. Eve Lewandowski, research fellow working on the cognitive genotype-phenotype study. Veronica Williams and Joseph DePaola are the research assistants and Beverly Pierce, (617) 855-2255, is the Administrative Assistant for the group.
Current Studies
- MRI studies of brain chemistry and function in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia
- Genetic association studies in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia