CSRD Research Career Scientist Award Application

福特博士是神经科学和精神病学领域的知名研究者，拥有神经科学和终身研究博士学位。 心理健康/精神病学方面的预约。她使用脑电图（EEG）和功能磁 磁共振成像 (fMRI)，用于研究精神分裂症 (SZ) 和重度抑郁症的神经生物学 （MDD）。现在，她将新冠病毒“长途运输者”添加到她用脑成像研究的条件中 方法。 深圳。福特博士在深圳的工作重点是抑制神经对自我反应的基本神经系统。 产生的刺激与环境产生的刺激进行比较。它被认为反映了一个 效应复制/推论放电机制涉及从运动到感觉区域的信号传导，准备 自我产生的感觉事件的感觉区域。这种机制在所有动物物种中普遍存在，并且 她将这种机制转化为人类范式的工作发现了感官的根本缺陷 精神病谱系人群的信息处理。在 NIH R01 资助下，她已经表现出了不足 这些机制与幻听和妄想有关。凭借目前 NIH R03 的资助，她 现在询问丘脑-脑桥-小脑回路在该系统成功运行中的作用。 福特博士的 VA 实习生的两名学员现在正在将这项工作扩展到精神病患者的新样本，这是他们的第一个样本 亲属、有患精神病临床风险的青少年以及未受影响的对照参与者。他们是 发现小脑和脑桥之间的连接与输出副本/推论的作用有关 放电机制。凭借最近资助的 NIH R03 拨款，她询问是否通过 EEG 评估 感知减慢对认知有上游影响，并导致精神病的临床特征 精神分裂症谱系。通过一项涉及 VA 精神科医生的待资助机械临床试验 (NIH R21)， 退伍军人管理局放射科医生和加州大学旧金山分校心脏病专家，她正在询问生酮饮食是否可以恢复神经网络 SZ 的稳定性，从而解决与功能不良相关的认知缺陷和代谢综合征 和寿命缩短。 MDD/深圳。大约 4 年前，她将 MDD 添加到她研究的临床人群中，并询问 沉思的负面后果，以及是否可以通过正念的生活方式来挽救这些后果。 反刍是一种内部认知状态，其特征是对自我痛苦和负面事件的递归思考 关注痛苦的原因和后果，而不是解决方案。它跨越了诊断界限： 它与 MDD 和 SZ 的症状严重程度和慢性程度相关。正念与较少相关 SZ 患者因幻听而感到痛苦，MDD 患者残留症状较少。它涉及出席 瞬间的经历和感觉，让情绪和思想进入和离开意识 不加判断，从而避免陷入沉思。与单纯的走神相比， 正念会招募一个注意力网络，包括顶叶和前额叶结构，而仅在走神时 招募默认模式网络。 长-COVID19。她正在研究的最新人群是新冠病毒后所谓的“长途运输者” 感染。虽然肺部归零，但新冠病毒却撕裂了从大脑到血管的器官系统。 一些康复者抱怨持续存在的问题，包括挥之不去的认知问题、抑郁症和 焦虑。 Ford 博士与 SFVAMC 的实验室医学和放射学部门联手，利用心理疗法 测试、神经影像学方法和大脑血液信号损伤标记物。仔细看看这些 如果我们要了解“新冠大脑”的病理生理学并为应对新冠肺炎做好准备，问题就显得及时且势在必行。 下游问题。

Dr. Ford is an established investigator in neuroscience and psychiatry, with a PhD in neuroscience and life-long appointments in mental health/psychiatry. She uses electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to investigate the neurobiology of schizophrenia (SZ) and major depressive disorder (MDD). And now, she is adding COVID19 “long haulers” to the conditions she studies with brain imaging methods. SZ. Dr. Ford’s work in SZ was focused on an elemental neural system that dampens neural responses to self- generated stimuli compared to stimuli arising from the environment. It is thought to reflect the operation of an efference copy/corollary discharge mechanism involving signaling from motor to sensory regions, preparing sensory regions for self-generated sensory events. This mechanism is ubiquitous across all animal species, and her work in translating this mechanism to a human paradigm has uncovered a fundamental deficit in sensory information processing in people on the psychosis spectrum. With NIH R01 funding, she has shown deficiencies in these mechanisms are linked to auditory hallucinations and delusions. With current NIH R03 funding, she is now asking about the role of the thalamo-pontine-cerebellar circuit in the successful operation of this system. Two of Dr. Ford’s VA trainees are now extending this work to a new sample of people with psychosis, their 1st degree relatives, youth at clinical risk for developing psychosis, and non-affected control participants. They are finding connectivity between cerebellum and pons is related to the action of the efference copy/corollary discharge mechanism. With a more recently funded NIH R03 grant, she is asking whether EEG-assessed slowed perception has upstream effects on cognition and contributes to clinical features of psychosis in the schizophrenia spectrum. With a to-be-funded mechanistic clinical trial (NIH R21) involving a VA psychiatrist, a VA radiologist, and a UCSF cardiologist, she is asking whether a ketogenic diet can restore neural network stability in SZ, thereby addressing both cognitive deficits and metabolic syndrome, associated with poor function and a shortened life span, respectively. MDD/SZ. About 4 years ago, she added MDD to the clinical populations she studies and is asking about the negative consequences of rumination and whether they can be rescued by a mindfulness approach to life. Rumination is an internal cognitive state characterized by recursive thinking of self-distress and negative events focusing on the causes and consequences of distress rather than solutions. It cuts across diagnostic boundaries: It is associated with symptom severity and chronicity in both MDD and SZ. Mindfulness is associated with less distress from auditory hallucinations in SZ and fewer residual symptoms in MDD. It involves attending to present moment experiences and sensations and allowing emotions and thoughts to enter and leave consciousness without judgment, thereby avoiding a downward spiral into rumination. Compared to simple mind wandering, mindfulness recruits an attention network including parietal and prefrontal structures while mind wandering only recruits the default mode network. Long-COVID19. The newest population she is studying is the so-called ‘long-haulers’ following COVID19 infection. While the lungs are ground zero, COVID19 tears through organ systems from brain to blood vessels. Some who recover complain of ongoing problems, including lingering cognitive problems, depression, and anxiety. Dr. Ford has joined forces with both Lab Medicine and Radiology at SFVAMC to use psychological testing, neuroimaging methods, and markers in the blood signaling damage in the brain. A close look at these problems is timely and imperative if we are to understand the pathophysiology of “COVID brain” and prepare for down-stream problems.