Center for Intervention Development and Applied Research

描述（由申请人提供）：根据《恢复法》修订申请有限竞争（NOT-OD-09-058）申请补助金PSO MH 082999 -01的补充资金申请涉及转化科学的主题：开发精神疾病治疗的创新目标和模型。这一补充有三个主要目的。首先，将要求提供资金，以保留一名优秀的研究生，其资金即将结束。第二，能够购买一台新的设备，以提高我们进行转化神经科学研究的能力，第三，使研究方法从人类研究适应精神分裂症临床前动物模型的研究，并评估一种新的治疗方法，用于减轻精神分裂症的社会障碍，使用这种独特的转化策略。具体而言，该修正案的重点是扩大正在马里兰州精神病学研究中心干预开发和应用研究（CIDAR）项目1和核心3下进行的基础神经科学研究。最近的研究表明，精神分裂症患者在识别和应对面部情感表现的能力方面受损，这在阅读眼睛中的心灵任务中被揭示。CIDAR的目标之一是检查催产素改善精神分裂症患者及其家庭成员这种能力的能力。超声波发声负责在啮齿动物之间传递情感信息。在这个竞争性修订中提出的新研究将评估暴露于产前应激的动物（模拟精神分裂症）是否在发出超声波发声或对与积极情感状态或消极情感状态相关的发声反应方面存在缺陷，类似于阅读眼睛中的心灵任务。此外，我们将评估催产素在精神分裂症动物模型中的作用，并确定它是否能提高动物识别和响应反映情感状态的发声的能力。这些研究将为CIDAR中正在进行的临床研究提供信息，并促进精神分裂症新治疗的开发

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This request for supplemental funding under the Recovery Act Limited Competition for Revision Applications (NOT-OD-09-058) for grant PSO MH082999-01 addresses the topic of Translational Science: Innovative Targets and Models for Developing Treatments for Mental Disorders. This supplement has three primary purposes. First, funds will be requested to retain an outstanding graduate student whose funding is ending. Second, to enable the purchase of a new piece of equipment to enhance our ability to perform translational neuroscience research and third, to adapt a research approach from human studies to studies in a preclinical animal model of schizophrenia and to evaluate a novel therapeutic approach for alleviating social impairments of schizophrenia using this unique translational strategy. Specifically, this amendment focuses on expanding the basic neuroscience research being performed under Project 1 and Core 3 of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center for Intervention Development and Applied Research (CIDAR). Recent studies have shown that patients with schizophrenia are impaired in their ability to recognize and respond to facial affect displays are revealed in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task. One of the goals of the CIDAR is to examine oxytocin's ability to improve this ability in patients with schizophrenia and their family members. Ultrasonic vocalizations are responsible for transmitting emotional information between rodents. The new studies being proposed in this Competitive Revision will evaluate whether animals exposed to prenatal stress, which models schizophrenia, have deficits in emitting ultrasonic vocalizations or responding to vocalizations that are related to positive affective states or negative affective states, similar to Reading the Mind in the Eyes task. In addition, we will evaluate the effect of oxytocin in our animal model of schizophrenia and determine whether it improves the animals ability to recognize and respond to vocalizations reflecting affective states. These studies will inform the clinical studies being performed in the CIDAR and facilitate novel treatment development for schizophrenia