A schizophrenia research center based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a 5-year, $10 million renewal grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health.
The renewal grant, to be paid in annual installments of more than $1.9 million, will enable the center to continue its ongoing research program of five projects, said John Gilmore, M.D., the center’s director and principal investigator.
The Silvio O. Conte Center for the Neuroscience of Mental Disorders, also known as the UNC Conte Center, brings together a diverse group of experts from UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University and the University of Utah to conduct comprehensive studies of brain development in the earliest stages of life through early adulthood, when schizophrenia is typically diagnosed. It was established in 2002 with an initial 5-year grant from the NIMH of more than $9.3 million.
The projects include two human clinical studies and three basic science studies. The two clinical studies study brain development in normally developing children and in children at high risk for schizophrenia in the first years of life, and during puberty and adolescence, two phases of rapid brain development thought to be affected by schizophrenia. The three basic science projects study how different genes that increase the risk of schizophrenia in humans change how the brain develops in animal models, Gilmore said.
Two recent journal publications are based on UNC Conte Center work. One, published in the February 2007 issue of Radiology, found that 26 percent of babies born vaginally experienced intracranial hemorrhages or bleeding in and around the brain. The other, published in the Feb. 7, 2007, issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, found that the regions of the brain that control vision and other sensory information grow dramatically in the first few months following birth, while the area that controls abstract thought experiences very little growth during the same period.
School of Medicine contact: Stephanie Crayton, (919) 966-2860 or scrayton@unch.unc.edu