Schizophrenia Related Disorders - Research Labs
Research Labs & Testing
The Neurophysiological Laboratory uses non-invasive, state-of-the-art instruments to evaluate eye movements, neural synchrony using electroencephalography (EEG) and evoked responses (ERP), sensory-motor gating (pre-pulse inhibition), eye-blink conditioning and other electrophysiological measures. The software used in the eye-lab includes Igor, MATLAB and AcqKnowledge. The lab writes customized programs and routines to analyze the electrophysiological data using Igor and MATLAB. Some of the instruments used in the neurophysiological laboratory include EyeLink II (http://www.eyelinkinfo.com/mount_main.php) for eye tracking, Neuroscan for EEG and ERP measurements, the Biopac MP100 Workstation for recording pre-pulse inhibition (PPI) in AcqKnowledge, Psylab SAM for producing sound during PPI, and a Grass Amplifier for calibrating during PPI.
The Molecular Neurogenetics Laboratory conducts studies on the effects of genetic variation on schizophrenia-related neurobiological traits in schizophrenia individuals, their unaffected biological relatives, and in healthy control participants. Schizophrenia is a common and debilitating neuropsychiatric disorder with a heritability of around 80%. Past efforts at uncovering susceptibility genes have been frustrated by the clinical and genetic heterogeneity of the syndrome, which may explain repeated failures to replicate identified disease loci.
Schizophrenia likely reflects a heterogeneous combination of causal paths, associated with various neurobiological deficits, which reflect the effects of a small subset of genes (or single gene). The study of schizophrenia-related endophenotypes may provide important insights into disease etiology by reducing phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity. Endophenotypes are traits that are likely more proximal to polymorphic genes than behavioral symptoms. For genetic studies, useful endophenotypes should be heritable, more frequently expressed in schizophrenia probands than in the general population, and stable over time.
The cognitive components to our studies involve neuropsychological tests that are administered in mainly paper/pencil and computerized formats. These assessments are used to better understand brain functioning and why people with schizophrenia often have deficits in areas such as memory and concentration.
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