New initiatives at the Poitras Center<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Poitras family\u2019s latest commitment to the Poitras Center will launch an ambitious set of new projects that bring together neuroscientists, clinicians, and computational experts to probe underpinnings of complex psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression. These efforts reflect the center\u2019s core mission: to speed scientific discovery and therapeutic innovation in the field of psychiatric brain disorders research.<\/p>\n
McGovern cognitive neuroscientists Evelina Fedorenko PhD \u201907, an associate professor, and Nancy Kanwisher \u201980, PhD \u201986,\u00a0the\u00a0Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience \u2014 in collaboration with psychiatrist Ann Shinn of McLean Hospital \u2014 will explore how altered inner speech and reasoning contribute to the symptoms of schizophrenia. They will collect functional MRI data from individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and matched controls as they perform reasoning tasks. The goal is to identify the brain activity patterns that underlie impaired reasoning in schizophrenia, a core cognitive disruption in the disorder.<\/p>\n
A complementary line of investigation will focus on the role of inner speech \u2014 the \u201cvoice in our head\u201d that shapes thought and self-awareness. The team will conduct a large-scale online behavioral study of neurotypical individuals to analyze how inner speech characteristics correlate with schizophrenia-spectrum traits. This will be followed by neuroimaging work comparing brain architecture among individuals with strong or weak inner voices and people with schizophrenia, with the aim of discovering neural markers linked to self-talk and disrupted cognition.<\/p>\n
A different project led by McGovern neuroscientist and MIT Associate Professor Mark Harnett and 2024\u20132026 Poitras Center Postdoctoral Fellow Cynthia Rais focuses on how ketamine \u2014 an increasingly used antidepressant \u2014 alters brain circuits to produce rapid and sustained improvements in mood. Despite its clinical success, ketamine\u2019s mechanisms of action remain poorly understood. The Harnett lab is using sophisticated tools to track how ketamine affects synaptic communication and large-scale brain network dynamics, particularly in models of treatment-resistant depression. By mapping these changes at both the cellular and systems levels, the team hopes to reveal how ketamine lifts mood so quickly \u2014 and inform the development of safer, longer-lasting antidepressants.<\/p>\n
Guoping Feng\u00a0is leveraging a new animal model of depression to uncover the brain circuits that drive major depressive disorder. The new animal model provides a powerful system for studying the intricacies of mood regulation. Feng\u2019s team is using state-of-the-art molecular tools to identify the specific genes and cell types involved in this circuit, with the goal of developing targeted treatments that can fine-tune these emotional pathways.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of the most promising models we have for understanding depression at a mechanistic level,\u201d says Feng, who is also associate director of the McGovern Institute. \u201cIt gives us a clear target for future therapies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another novel approach to treating mood disorders comes from the lab of James DiCarlo, the Peter de Florez Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, who is exploring the brain\u2019s visual-emotional interface as a therapeutic tool for anxiety. The amygdala, a key emotional center in the brain, is heavily influenced by visual input. DiCarlo\u2019s lab is using advanced computational models to design visual scenes that may subtly shift emotional processing in the brain \u2014 essentially using sight to regulate mood. Unlike traditional therapies, this strategy could offer a noninvasive, drug-free option for individuals suffering from anxiety.<\/p>\n
Together, these projects exemplify the kind of interdisciplinary, high-impact research that the Poitras Center was established to support.<\/p>\n
\u201cMental illness affects not just individuals, but entire families who often struggle in silence and uncertainty,\u201d adds Patricia Poitras. \u201cOur hope is that Poitras Center scientists will continue to make important advancements and spark novel treatments for complex mental health disorders and, most of all, give families living with these conditions a renewed sense of hope for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One in every eight people \u2014 970 million globally \u2014 live with mental illness, according to the World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[3083,5546,30246,164,18,30243,30241,30240,135,19,30236,17,30247,30238,6624,30245,30234,30244,30237,30239,30235,30242,8046],"class_list":{"0":"post-39478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-anxiety","9":"tag-bipolar-disorder","10":"tag-cynthia-rais","11":"tag-depression","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-evelina-fedorenko","14":"tag-feng-zhang","15":"tag-guoping-feng","16":"tag-health","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-inner-speech","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-james-dicarlo","21":"tag-james-poitras","22":"tag-ketamine","23":"tag-mark-harnett","24":"tag-mit-mcgovern-institute","25":"tag-nancy-kanwisher","26":"tag-novaiscb","27":"tag-patricia-poitras","28":"tag-poitras-center-for-psychiatric-disorders-research","29":"tag-robert-desimone","30":"tag-schizophrenia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}