Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2005

Mentor: Carol A. Tamminga, M.D.
Department: Psychiatry
Room number: NC5.208
Mail Code: 9070
Phone number: 214-648-4924
E-mail: carol.tamminga@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title: Dallas Brain Collection

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 0903-549

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Project Type: Basic Research

Brief Description of Project:

The Dallas Brain Collection (DBC) collects, characterizes, diagnoses, stores, and dispenses human brain tissue from psychiatric cases and their controls. The purpose is for research into the biological bases of those diseases at UT Southwestern Medical Center and collaborating laboratories. We put a priority on collecting tissue from people with schizophrenia and the affective disorders, because these are complex diseases of largely unknown origin and poor prognosis that present a substantial medical need. Brain tissue is collected from recently deceased persons who come to the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office (DCME), the UTSW Transplant Service Center or the UTSW Willed Body Program. After obtaining permission to use the tissue for research from the next of kin (NOK), the tissue is transported to the DBC lab where it is processed and stored for research use. We collect medical records of the deceased and carry out an interview with a family informant; then, experienced psychiatrists prepare a post-mortem diagnosis from all sources of information. Tissues will be assigned case numbers to protect patient identity and enable double blind studies.

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Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 1103-732

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Project Type: Patient Based

Brief Description of Project:

Human brain imaging has become the single new technology most responsible for informing recent new understandings of human brain function. This is particularly true for the developing knowledge of hippocampal contribution to learning and memory in brain and the roles played by other related cerebral regions in these aspects of cognition.

The proposed project is a functional MRI study of schizophrenic and normal volunteers matched by age, gender, dominant-handedness, and by the average educational level of their 1st degree relatives. After giving their informed consent, the schizophrenic subjects will undergo a diagnostic workup, including a psychiatric history and battery of standardized assessments of positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. Schizophrenic subjects will then be sorted into three groups based on whether their symptoms are primarily in the primarily positive, negative, or cognitive domain. No changes will be made to the patients' medications or treatment regimes as part of the study. Functional MR images of the entire brain will be acquired while subjects perform several cognitive tasks thought to activate the MTL and other pertinent brain regions. Stimuli will be presented using a goggle display system and subjects will indicate their responses using a handheld button pad. The proposed study will evaluate hippocampal activity during novelty detection, encoding and retrieval of associations between individual stimuli, and during other cognitive tasks thought to produce abnormal BOLD-fMRI activations in schizophrenia.

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Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): A3472-01

Project Type: Animal Based

Brief Description of Project:

This study involves a series of laboratory research projects to continue a productive line of research into the behavioral, neurochemical, and anatomic characterization of new antipsychotic drugs. We test effects of three antipsychotic drugs on two mouse behaviors when applied acutely and after 1, 2, 3, and 4 months of antipsychotic treatment.

Concurrently, we analyze neurochemical and anatomic markers of neurotransmitter pathways in CNS, especially in those regions where clinical schizophrenia studies have localized attentional and cognitive dysfunction. The behavioral, neurochemical, and anatomic changes will be correlated over treatment time in each drug group and contrasted between drugs.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

Previous/Current Research Activities
" Comparative Antipsychotic Drug Actions on Brain Neurochemistry
" Quantitative Examination of the Limbic Cortex in Schizophrenia
" The Dallas Brain Collection
" Phenotyping, genotyping, and fMRI with the ANT task
" Neuroimaging of the Medial Temporal Lobe
" Efficacy and Tolerability of Olanzapine, Quetiapine, and Risperidone in the Treatment of First Episode Psychosis: A Randomized Double Blind 52-Week Comparison
" Functional MRI Study of Neurocognitive Effects of Quetiapine Comparison To Haloperidol in Schizophrenia
" Regional Blood Flow Correlates of Cognitive Treatments in Schizophrenia
" Hippocampal Function in Schizophrenia

Please contact Rachael Hogg at 214-648-5558 for a list of publications submitted with medical students.

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