Biopsychology

Gerard Bruder, Ph.D. Chief of Psychiatric Research
Ziad Boulos, Ph.D., Research Scientist V
W. Crawford Clark, Ph.D., Research Scientist VI
Steven Fairhurst, M.A., Research Scientist III
Jürgen Kayser, Ph.D., Research Scientist IV
John Kuhl, Ph.D., Research Scientist III
M.Mila Macchi, Ph.D., Research Scientist III
Chara Malapani, M.D., Ph.D., Research Scientist V
Brian Rakitin, Ph.D., Associate Research Scientist
Craig Tenke, Ph.D., Research Scientist IV
Michael Terman, Ph.D., Research Scientist VI
Jiuan Su Terman, Ph.D., Research Scientist IV
James Towey, Ph.D., Research Scientist IV

 

As a successor to the noted Psychophysiology Department, which was directed by the late Dr. Samuel Sutton, the Biopsychology Department at Psychiatric Institute has continued that tradition of distinction. Originally concerned with psychological research in animals and patients, it has more recently developed an increased emphasis on the neurobiological systems underlying psychopathology. Dr. John Gibbon an eminent researcher on cognitive issues in timing behavior, was chief of the Department until his recent death. The Department's Acting Chief now is Dr. Gerard Bruder.

Using behavioral, cognitive, and physiological techniques, the Biopsychology Department investigates brain-behavior relationships and the neurobiological and cognitive mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders. Research involves basic and preclinical studies, development and application of laboratory-based assessment, and clinical trials. The department comprises four units – Psychophysiology, Clinical Chronobiology, Temporal Cognition, and Somatosensory and Pain, as well as a training component focusing on under-represented minorities.

Psychophysiology Laboratory                       Visit the Psychophysiology Web Site
Drs. Gerard Bruder, Craig Tenke, Jürgen Kayser and their collaborators in the Depression Evaluation Service continued their NIMH-funded study of right-left brain asymmetries in depressive disorders. Using electrophysiologic measures of brain potentials and cognitive laterality tests, they have found that abnormalities of regional brain asymmetry in depressive disorders are related to important clinical features, in particular diagnosis subtype, comorbidity with anxiety, and clinical responsiveness to treatments for depression. Their findings indicate that depressed patients who respond favorably to an SSRI antidepressant (Prozac) differ from non-responders on both electrophysiologic and cognitive measures of right-left brain asymmetry. Drs. Bruder, Kayser and Tenke also continued their NIMH-funded study of brain event-related potentials and cognitive function in schizophrenia, in collaboration with members of the Schizophrenia Research Unit and the Lieber Center for Schizophrenia Research. The fine temporal resolution of their electrocortical measures enabled to them to demonstrate that negative brain potentials beginning as early as 100 to 200 milliseconds after stimulus onset are markedly reduced in schizophrenia. Both the event-related potential and cognitive laterality data indicate that diagnostic subtypes of schizophrenia differ in their left brain dominance for processing verbal information. Findings from working memory tests also provide evidence for a subtype of schizophrenia with a specific deficit in verbal memory. A study of the genetics of working memory capacity was also begun during this period in collaboration with Dr. Conrad Gilliam of the Columbia Genome Center. Drs. Tenke and Kayser also advanced the development of sophisticated methods for processing and analyzing electrophysiologic data, work that is broadly acknowledged by the international research community.
 Click here to visit the Psychophysiology website

Clinical Chronobiology Unit
Drs. Michael Terman and Jiuan Su-Terman continued an NIMH-supported clinical trial for patients with seasonal affective disorder.  Three distinct treatments are being compared: post-awakening bright light therapy, dawn simulation, and high-intensity negative air ionization (the latter two administered during sleep). The project follows from their recent demonstration that bright light and negative ion therapy are both superior to placebo controls.  They have also shown that light is most effective 7.5-9.5 hours after onset of pineal melatonin production in the evening.  In exploratory studies, morning light therapy has also shown positive response in chronic and antepartum depression -- work in collaboration with Case Western Reserve, Wesleyan and Yale.

Dr. Terman and Dr. Thomas White of NYS Office of Mental Health published a novel on-line instrument ( http://www.cet.org/AutoMEQ.htm  ) by which people can estimate their circadian rhythm phase and determine the optimum time for antidepressant light exposure. With recently added demographic questions, the instrument is being used in a new research study to chart chronotype globally and across the seasons. Dr. Terman and Dr. Janet Williams worked with the NIMH Behavioral Endocrinology Branch to implement their Structured Interview Guide for the Hamilton Depression Scale - Seasonal Affective Disorder Version for on-line administration by clinical researchers. Drs. Ziad Boulos, Mila Macchi and Karen Stewart completed an NIMH-sponsored, controlled field trial of light therapy for jet lag. Travelers from Zurich showed accelerated adjustment to NY time with evening bright light pulses delivered by a head-mounted ambulatory light source. With funding from NINDS, Dr. Boulos has been studying dusk and dawn twilight effects on the timing and duration of daily activity in hamsters. With twilights present, circadian rhythms can be stretched or contracted relative to the 24-hour day far more effectively than with sudden light-dark transitions. At Dr. Macchi's initiative, the group has formed a collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey Bruce of Neurological Institute to study patients who have had surgical removal of the pineal tumors and consequent discontinuation of endogenous melatonin production resulting in depressive and sleep disorders. A new grant from NINDS has been approved for this work.

Temporal Cognition Unit
Drs. John Gibbon and Chara Malapani co-directed the unit until Dr. Gibbon’s untimely death in January 2001. Dr. Malapani, with support from two NIMH grants, has continued their collaborative research, which was mainly basic in character (e.g., behavioral studies using animals) and added new lines of research (e.g., drug treatment studies using humans and animals). Dr. Malapani initiated a drug study with animals (pigeons and rats), in collaboration with Drs. Peter Balsam and John Horvitz of Columbia University, which helps clarify the role of dopaminergic systems in animal and human timing behavior. This new direction of the animal research is closely linked with the human research being conducted in the Unit. It is aimed at developing and implementing animal models of human diseases (i.e., Parkinson's Disease [PD] and Schizophrenia) that are known to involve specific brain areas (the basal ganglia - cortical frontal loops) and central dopaminergic systems. The human work focuses on isolating the neural substrates underlying either the storage and/or the retrieval process of temporal memory. Using deep brain stimulation with PD patients, Dr. Malapani demonstrated that the subthalamic nucleus, in the indirect pathway from striatum to the frontal cortex, is specifically involved in the retrieval process. The retrieval distortion associated with PD led to a new line of experiments with Dr. Brian Rakitin exploring the role of distinct kinds of feedback in correcting those deficits. This research has also led to a new study that looks at the effects of dopaminergic drugs on timing distortions seen with aging, which is being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Yaakov Stern (Sergievsky Center) and Dr. Rakitin. Also noteworthy is a new collaboration established during 2002 with Dr. Truman Brown, Professor of Radiology and Biomedical engineering at Columbia, which should lead to an improved understanding of the brain mechanisms whereby the “time sense” indexes the passage of time and stores/encodes relevant time intervals in memory. Deepening our understanding of the neurobiology of learning and memory for time is expected to provide new insights into the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of psychiatric and neurological human brain diseases.

Somatosensory and Pain Laboratory
Drs. Crawford Clark and John Kuhl are studying the dimensions underlying painful and non-painful somatosensory perception and related emotional states. A study funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research evaluates gender, ethnocultural and menstrual cycle differences in pain sensation and pain report. Special focus is placed on the use of a statistical or medical decision theory model to quantify: (i) gender and ethnocultural differences in neurosensory sensitivity, and (ii) psychosocial factors that influence pain report bias (degree of stoicism or squeamishness). Contrary to what is generally believed, their studies suggest that differences in gender and ethnocultural sensory thresholds are mostly psychological and linguistic rather than neurosensory and physiological. Using multivariate techniques, Drs. Clark and Ralph Wharton have recently demonstrated sex and ethnocultural differences in the meanings given to descriptors of pain and emotion; for example, disturbing, distressing and nauseating are considered descriptors of sensory pain by men, but emotional pain by women. In collaboration with Dr. J. Yang, Dr. Clark found that female postoperative pain patients required almost half the dosage of morphine to obtain the same level of postoperative pain measured by their Multidimensional Affect and Pain Survey (MAPS), which strongly suggests a physiological basis for this gender difference. Three separate studies , in Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, and the USA, have each demonstrated the surprising finding that intensity scores on a standard numerical pain rating scale fail to correlate with descriptors of the sensory aspects of pain, but showed strong correlations with descriptors of the emotional aspects of pain. These results raise questions about the use of patients’ responses to simple pain rating scales as a basis for treatment decisions. With Drs. J. Mohr (Neurology), R. Wharton (Psychiatry) and S. Bennett Clark (Biopsychology), Dr. Clark continues the study of sensory measures that predict the occurrence of post-stroke central pain and results of treatment with the antidepressant Zoloft.

The Biopsychology Department also participated in the training of undergraduate and graduate students from local colleges. Dr. James Towey directs an NIMH-funded project, COR Training of Mercy Scholars at Psychiatric Institute, designed to help increase the numbers of ethnic minorities who pursue doctoral-level careers in mental health research. Five qualified students from Mercy College, an NIH-designated Minority Serving Institution, are selected each year to receive a pre-baccalaureate National Research Service Award, enhanced course work at the College, and research experiences at Psychiatric Institute.