Mentoring and Research on Cognitive Deficits in Schizophrenia

描述（由申请人提供）：我是一名有执照的临床神经心理学家和认知神经科学家。我致力于了解神经精神疾病，主要是精神分裂症的基本认知缺陷的神经基础和本质。我是马萨诸塞州总医院（MGH）和哈佛医学院精神病学系的心理学家和心理学副教授。我还担任MGH精神病学神经成像部门执行功能多模式神经成像实验室主任。自1999年获得K23奖以来，我一直在进行NIMH赞助的患者导向研究（POR）。自2003年以来，我一直是R01项目的PI，题为“精神分裂症中语境处理的时空动态”。这项工作的目的是利用互补的神经成像技术来确定基本认知缺陷的神经基础。我也是名为《精神分裂症中的睡眠依赖记忆加工》的新父母R01的PI，该研究将特定的认知缺陷（记忆巩固受损）与特定的机制（异常的睡眠纺锤波）联系起来，并提供有效的治疗方法（eszopiclone，在安慰剂对照的初步研究中恢复了睡眠纺锤波和记忆）。更广泛地说，这个研究项目有潜力极大地扩展神经精神疾病中认知缺陷的现有模型，并导致有效的干预。我在一个非常丰富的临床研究环境中工作，并组建了一个梦幻团队的合作者。我没有得到任何机构的指导或研究支持，如果没有额外的资金，我将不得不减少这些活动，从2012年开始承担重要的临床责任。K24将节省我原本用于临床工作的时间，让我有更多的时间为POR的初级研究人员提供密集的持续指导（30%），并通过新的培训和研究进一步发展我在神经科学和睡眠测量方面的专业知识（20%），同时继续投入50%的精力进行资助的POR，将神经科学的进步转化为认知缺陷的治疗。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): I am a licensed clinical neuropsychologist and a cognitive neuroscientist. I have devoted my career to understanding the neural basis and nature of fundamental cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders, primarily schizophrenia. I serve as a Psychologist and an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School. I also serve as the Director of the Laboratory for Multimodal Neuroimaging of Executive Function in the Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging at MGH. I have been conducting NIMH sponsored patient oriented research (POR) continuously since the initiation of my K23 award in 1999. Since 2003, I have been the PI on an R01 entitled, Spatiotemporal dynamics of context processing in schizophrenia. The goal of this work is to identify the neural bases of fundamental cognitive deficits using complementary neuroimaging techniques. I am also the PI on the new parent R01 entitled, Sleep-Dependent Memory Processing in Schizophrenia, which will link a specific cognitive deficit (impaired memory consolidation) to a particular mechanism (abnormal sleep spindles) and provide an effective treatment (eszopiclone, which restored sleep spindles and memory in a placebo-controlled pilot study). More broadly, this research program has the potential to substantially expand current models of cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders and lead to effective interventions. I work in an incredibly rich environment for clinica research and have assembled a dream team of collaborators. I receive no institutional support for mentoring or research and without additional funding, I will have to curtail these activities t assume significant clinical responsibilities beginning in 2012. The K24 will protect time that would otherwise be diverted to clinical responsibilities and allow me to devote more time to providing intensive ongoing mentorship to junior investigators in POR (30%) and to further develop my expertise in the neuroscience and measurement of sleep via new training and research (20%) while continuing to devote 50% of my effort to conducting funded POR that translates advances in neuroscience into treatments for cognitive deficits.