Projects

Current Projects

Nicotine (TRDRP) Study

Subjects: Both male and females, 18-65

1. Diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder – smokers and non-smokers (nicotine cigarettes only)

Exceptions:

  • History of severe head injury or seizure disorder
  • Drug or alcohol abuse within the last 30 day
  • Pregnancy
  • Hearing or vision problems that prevent listening to or clear seeing the stimuli presented
  • Severe or uncontrolled cardiac, hepatic renal, endocrine disease

Purpose: To investigate the modulation of neurocognition and sensory gating by smoking status
(smokers/nonsmokers) in bipolar disorder and to investigate the modulation of genetic variants and sensory
gating by smoking status in BPD. Sensory gating, a trait measure of brain inhibitory function, is impaired in
schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BPD) and is an established endophenotype for these disorders
confirmed by a number of studies. SZ and BPD are also associated with adverse cognitive outcomes. Smoking
reverses the gating impairment in SZ and ameliorates some of the cognitive deficits associated with SZ.
Nicotine replacement represents a valuable cessation modality for SZ as it helps to sustain the sensory and
cognitive benefits during abstinence that smoking previously conferred. For BPD, the potential for smoking
status to mediate cognition and sensory gating has not been studied. Smoking may be an important
modulator of sensory and cognitive function and represent a biomarker to guide understanding of nicotine
addiction in this high-risk group. We will study groups of smoking and non-smoking individuals with BPD.
Smoking rates are two to three times higher in those with bipolar disorder (BPD) and schizophrenia (SZ)
compared to the general population, making them susceptible to the associated adverse health effects
as well as mortality at an earlier age.

Pritzker- Major Depressive Disorder

Subjects: male and female 18-70 diagnosed with MDD (with or without psychotic features)

Purpose: Is there anything in a person’s blood, saliva and hair that indicates if a person is suicidal. Looking for
biological markers for severe depression.

Collect:
1. Blood, hair, saliva urine samples
2. Structured clinical Interview
3. Self-reported questionnaire
4. Cognitive testing
Duration: screening (2hrs), baseline (4hrs) and one year follow up (4hrs)

Past Projects

BIAL (Phase 2)

Subjects: Right-handed females only

Purpose: Before sight was evolved, organisms could sense danger and their environment through other
mechanism like SONAR. We hypothesize that some of these old mechanisms remain in humans today and
thus people are able to anticipate negative or positive images before they actually see them. It is also
predicted that the response following the stimuli will be greater for unpleasant images than pleasant images.

Collect:

1. 64-channel of EEG collected during presentation of unpleasant, pleasant and neutral visual stimuli
2. Auditory test to make sure hearing is sufficient
3. 64-channel of EEG with auditory stimuli
4. Mee-Bunney pain questionnaire, and NEO questionnaire

Duration: 2 visits of the above collections at least 7 days apart and no more than 30 days apart

Gating Study

Subjects: Both male and females, 18-65, Diagnosis of Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder or Controls with no psychiatric history

Exceptions:

  • History of severe head injury or seizure disorder
  • Drug or alcohol abuse within the last 30 day
  • Pregnancy
  • Hearing or vision problems that prevent listening to or clear seeing the stimuli presented
  • Severe or uncontrolled cardiac, hepatic renal, endocrine disease

Purpose: To study whether 2 electrophysiological measures derived from EEG may be biomarkers for bipolar
I and schizophrenia disorder as well as whether there are cognitive markers for bipolar I and schizophrenia
derived from a neuropsychological test battery.

Collect:

1. 64-Channel EEG
2. Computerized neuropsychological tests including memory, attention, distractibility and executive
function (CMINDS)
3. Symptoms ratings
4. Modified SCID (Structured clinical interview for DSM-IV-TR AXIS 1 Disorders)
5. 2 Scales to assess sensory anomalies

Duration: ~4 hours