RESEARCH NEWS
Institute Research Awarded Over $2M
The Schizophrenia Research Institute is pleased to announce that research supported by the Institute was recently rewarded with significant support from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Australian Research Council (ARC) totaling an investment of over $2 million. This funding reflects the quality and relevance of the Institute's research program.
Congratulations to Institute CEO Prof. Vaughan Carr and Prof. Amanda Baker, Dr Chao Deng, Dr Francesca Fernandez, Dr Kristin Laurens, Prof. Rhoshel Lenroot, Prof. Pat Michie, Dr Elizabeth Maloney, A/Prof. Ulli Schall, Dr Nadia Solowij and Dr Juanita Todd.
The NHMRC and ARC are Australia's peak bodies for supporting health and medical research, and to receive these grants is seen as a measure of excellence in the medical research community. To the recipients it means that their Australian research peers have assessed their research proposals as among the most likely to produce significant benefit to the community. The grant recipients and research projects are:
The NSW Child Development Study.
Carr V, Laurens K, Holbrook A, Lenroot R, Brinkman S, Bore M, Maloney E, Smith M, Matthews R. ARC Linkage Projects 2011-2014 ($429,099)
Research shows that a child's development predicts health and social outcomes later in life. This Australian project will be the first to identify risk and protective factors associated with these outcomes in 87,000 children from birth to 10 years. The results will help inform governments to improve our children's health and educational achievements.
Impaired anticipation of sensory events in schizophrenia.
Todd J, Schall U, Michie P, Ward P. NHMRC Project Grant 2011-2013 ($300,032).
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that costs Australia millions of dollars and hundreds of lives every year. To address schizophrenia we need to know more about how the illness develops. A brain measure (mismatch negativity) tracks biological brain changes and functional impairments in daily living that emerge in schizophrenia. It is not yet known if this measure can teach us about vulnerability to developing schizophrenia or only the effect of the disease. This study will address this question.
Vulnerability markers in the association between cannabis and schizophrenia.
Solowij N, Croft R, Todd J, Fernandez F, Michie P, McGuire P, Murray R. NHMRC Project Grant 2011-2013 ($499,006).
Understanding the conditions that confer vulnerability to the triggering of schizophrenia by cannabis use is key to preventing transition to psychosis in up to 14% of cases. This project will examine the long- and short-term effects of different cannabis compounds on specific vulnerability markers of brain chemical abnormalities in cannabis users from the general community.
Understanding the mechanisms of functionally selective antipsychotic drugs: Implications for new generation antipsychotic
drugs.
Deng C. NHMRC Project Grant 2011-2013 ($359,182).
This project aims to reveal the mechanisms of new functionally selective antipsychotic drugs, which achieve an excellent therapeutic efficacy with low side-effects. Understanding these mechanisms will provide novel directions for the design of new generation antipsychotic drugs.
Follow up of Healthy Lifestyles Intervention for Cardiovascular Disease among people with a psychotic disorder.
Baker A, Richmond R, Castle D, Kay-Lambkin F. Follow-up of NHMRC Project Grant 2011-2013 ($436,085).
Congratulations also to Institute affiliates Prof. Stan
Catts, A/Prof. Anthony Harris, Prof. Assen Jablensky, Dr Tim Karl,
A/Prof. Robyn Langdon, Prof. Vera Morgan, Prof. Peter Schofield
and Prof. Lea Williams on the award of funding for schizophrenia and other mental health research projects that have not received direct support from the Institute.
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