Training to Enhance Alignment of Psychiatry and Neuroscience

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SUMMARY This postdoctoral training program at McLean Hospital is designed to address gaps in psychiatry and neuroscience training that limit effective communication across disciplines and translation of discoveries into new treatments. In psychiatry, rapid advances in technology are changing the ways in which psychiatric illness is diagnosed, treated, and studied. In humans, continued refinements in brain imaging, increasing utilization of smart devices, and improvements in the efficiency of genetic tools are among developments enabling fundamentally new insights into healthy and aberrant brain function, as well as molecular factors that contribute to vulnerability to illness. In animal model systems, there has been a corresponding evolution of precision molecular techniques to probe and dissect the neural circuitry underlying motivational and emotional behavior. Despite these advances, psychiatry and neuroscience continue to evolve in parallel, with precious few examples where the fields have aligned to produce transformative changes in human health. One indicator of this parallel evolution is stagnation in development of new treatments; indeed, difficulties in developing CNS drugs with new mechanisms have led to a massive divestment by industry. While many factors contribute to these failures, most are related to a lack of forward- (animal to human) and back- (human to animal) translation of key discoveries, leading to questions about the usefulness of model systems in drug development. Enhancing alignment of psychiatry and neuroscience is critical to invigorate translationally-relevant discoveries in clinical and basic research. With its combined clinical, research, and academic missions, McLean is optimally positioned to play a key role in establishing more impactful interactions between psychiatry and neuroscience. Research occurs in >100 labs across clinical, preclinical, and basic neuroscience programs that are intertwined, in adjacent labs or neighboring buildings, enabling routine interactions among clinicians, neuroscientists, and trainees (residents, postdocs, students). As a freestanding psychiatric hospital—perennially ranked #1 in this category—there is expertise in a broad range of NIMH-relevant domains. McLean has unique attributes, including the Institute for Technology in Psychiatry, to facilitate efforts to align research in humans and animals. This T32 program will provide resources for 6 slots per year to support activities for postdoctoral trainees across a range of experience levels for up to 3 years. The main objectives include (1) exposing a diverse group of trainees with backgrounds in clinical care to basic neuroscience research, and vice-versa, (2) providing comprehensive training that prioritizes emerging technologies such as digital phenotyping, biomarkers, and genetics to enable rigorous study of homologous endpoints in humans and animals, (3) ensuring a balanced experience via dual mentors with complementary expertise, and (4) leveraging the dual mentorship design to train emerging mentors. Progress towards these goals will be overseen by a McLean leadership team and an External Advisory Committee comprising world-renowned experts in psychiatry, neuroscience, training, and therapeutics development.