Dr. Salvador Guinjoan is a Principal Investigator at LIBR and Research Associate Professor at The University of Tulsa. He is working on the definition of neurobiological signatures of transdiagnostic clinical manifestations (especially rumination, a well-known adverse prognostic factor in a variety of psychiatric conditions), with the purpose of attaining a better definition of both 1) disease processes which transcend current psychiatric diagnostic categories, and 2) prognosis and prediction of response to treatment, especially in the mood and anxiety disorders. To this end, he is studying a large sample of healthy participants and patients with nonpsychotic disorders (T1000). He is also helping to define experiments that characterize -and modulate- structural and functional brain circuits in such disorders, with the ultimate goal of providing the treating clinician with diagnostic and prognostic tools based upon quantifiable neurobiological variables.
What is your research study about? We are using a new technique called low-intensity focused ultrasound, which allows us to modulate the activity of small and well-defined areas in the brain using a non-invasive brain scan. Our goal is to define brain circuits that sub-serve our behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. In particular, we are interested in modulating brain connections involved in rumination. Rumination is a repetitive pattern of thinking, primarily self-relevant negative thoughts and memories. Rumination is associated with more difficult treatment of depression. If we were able to resolve it, in theory, we could also improve the prognosis of depression in general. What is focused ultrasound? Focused ultrasound is a novel technique to influence the activity (or the structure) of areas anywhere in the brain, in a non-invasive, painless, and safe way. We are only using low-intensity focused ultrasound, which modulates brain activity for a relatively short period of time. Alternatively, when used with high intensity in a neurosurgery setting, focused ultrasound can produce well-defined, circumscribed lesions in circuits that have been demonstrated to improve neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor, which might be useful in psychiatric conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and major depression. Low-intensity and high-intensity ranges are well-defined and, in fact, use different devices. Again, we only use low-intensity focused ultrasound. How is the study being conducted? Participants in the study undergo an initial eligibility evaluation. Eligible participants include healthy, unmedicated persons, as well as persons with depression and varying degrees of rumination as one of the symptoms of their depression. The initial evaluation includes measuring a series of clinical variables and obtaining brain images with a magnetic resonance (MRI) scanner. Subjects return for two more visits, in which each participant undergoes either low-intensity focused ultrasound of connections between two areas of the brain, or a sham procedure (neither the participant nor the clinical rater know which kind of procedure occurs in each visit). Immediately after low-intensity focused ultrasound or sham, the person is asked to complete questionnaires about the extent of their ruminations, and how they feel in general. We also obtain measures of cardiac and skin regulation, and another series of brain images. What is the potential importance of this study? The goal of the study is to define if the brain connections targeted with low-intensity focused ultrasound are the cause of rumination. This is why we need to obtain information about both the symptom itself and the brain activity. If we confirm a relationship between certain brain connections and the production of rumination, this would pave the way to a clinical trial. This trial, performed in a clinical setting, would confirm that we can actually help patients with depression to become less ruminative. For this, we could use focused ultrasound or other forms of neuromodulation. The most important thing is characterizing the brain region involved in the symptom, rather than which tool we use to alter its function. Are you looking for participants? If so, who is the ideal candidate? Yes, we are actively recruiting participants. This is a pilot study, meaning we plan to recruit a relatively small number of participants. Currently, there are just 20 slots remaining. Any person with active depression who is not pregnant or actively using drugs, and who can be scanned, is eligible to participate. Persons who either very ruminative or not ruminative are eligible, as we need to know if there is a difference between the two. A small proportion of those 20 slots will be reserved for persons with no known psychiatric conditions, so healthy adults are also eligible to participate. What does participation in the study involve? And will I be paid? The study consists of a total of five visits. Visit 1 is for clinical evaluation and brain images. Visits 2 and 4, which occur about two weeks apart, are for assessing the effect of low-intensity focused ultrasound in comparison with sham stimulation. Between those visits, Visit 3 is short and basically used to see how the participant is doing after the first treatment (be it active or sham). Visit 5 is an opportunity to wrap up the study, in which we again check on the general mental status and brain structure. All participants will be paid for their time spent in the study.
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The 2022 Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR) Annual Report is now available to download via the link below. The report provides an overview of last year’s happenings at LIBR, including a letter from the President and Scientific Director, Dr. Martin Paulus, information on our mission, history and specific aims, current areas of research, funding sources, events and lectures, awards, individual laboratories, select publications and opportunities to participate in research. We hope you enjoy the publication and look forward to continuing our goal to improve mental health through neuroscience in 2023 and beyond.
The Oklahoman has published a op-ed piece from Dr. Martin Paulus, Sahib Khalsa and Salvador Guinjoan on what Oklahomans should consider from the latest marijuana research ahead of SQ 820.
Dr. Joan Camprodon - February 7, 2023
"Suicide Circuit Therapeutics: Leveraging the Efficacy of ECT and the Focality of TMS" William K. Warren, Jr. Frontiers in Neuroscience Lecture 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm Program in the LPCH auditorium (No registration needed) Dr. Camprodon is inaugural Chief of the Division of Neuropsychiatry and Director of the Laboratory for Neuropsychiatry and Neuromodulation at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Clinically, he is the founding Director of the MGH Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) clinical service, a member of the Psychiatric Neurosurgery Committee and an attending physician in the Departments of Psychiatry (Neuropsychiatry) and Neurology (Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology). He is board-certified in psychiatry and behavioral neurology-neuropsychiatry. Dr. Camprodon’s research focuses on Neuropsychiatry and Neuromodulation. Methodologically, he uses multimodal combinations of brain stimulation and neuroimaging/neurophysiology to investigate neural circuitry and plasticity in a translational manner. He uses a wide range of noninvasive and invasive neuromodulation techniques including transcranial current stimulation (tCS, e.g. tDCS/tACS), transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial photobiomodulation, electroconvulsive therapy and deep brain stimulation. He also uses multimodal functional and structural MRI, EEG and innovative simultaneous combinations of TMS and tDCS/tACS with neuroimaging and neurophysiology. The scope of his research includes basic, translational and clinical projects focused on human circuit neuroscience. Projects in his laboratory address (1) circuit level neuropsychiatric pathophysiology (with an emphasis on transdiagnostic processes and the role of plasticity) and (3) the translational development of tools to support clinical care and decision-making (e.g. biomarkers and treatment development). Critical efforts are geared towards applying the paradigms and methods of human systems/cognitive neuroscience to discover treatment targets that support the development of individualized precision therapeutics, with a focus on image-guided device-based neuromodulation. Learning objectives:
Saint Francis Health System designates this live activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. For Psychologists: The Oklahoma State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, the American Psychological Association and the Oklahoma Psychological Association recognize AMA PRA Category 1 credit™. Saint Francis Health System is accredited by the OSMA For Social Workers: Saint Francis Health System is an approved provider of continuing education for social worker through the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Social Workers for 1 hour Category 1 Clinical. (CEP Number - 20230007) For CADCs and LADCs Saint Francis Health System is accredited as a provider of continuing education programs for CADCs and LADCs through the Oklahoma Board of Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselors. (1 hour) The LPC/LMFT This event as been approved by the State Board of Behavioral Health Licensure (BBHL) for 1 hour of CE. For questions , email: Lauren Haguewood at [email protected] Dr. Guido Frank - January 11, 2023
"Why Does My Child Not Eat? The Complex Relationships Between Behavior and Neurobiology in Eating Disorders" William K. Warren, Jr. Frontiers in Neuroscience Lecture 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm Program in the LPCH auditorium (No registration needed) Dr. Frank is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego and a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist. He earned his medical degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany. He trained in psychosomatics at the Center for Behavioral Health Klinik Roseneck, Prien, Germany, and then at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh, and the University of California San Diego, USA. Dr. Frank is a clinician-researcher who has studied the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders for the past 25 years. He is also a trained psychotherapist and applies neurobiological knowledge to inform psychotherapeutic treatment. In addition, he is an expert consultant to local and national law firms. He has received multiple awards for mentoring, research, and teaching. Dr. Frank has been funded through the National Institute of Mental Health and numerous private foundation grants for the past fifteen years to study the biological domains that underlie eating disorder-related behaviors in youth and adults. His research has introduced computational modeling to the eating disorders field. His overarching goal is to develop translational models that bridge clinical presentation with neuroscience to develop more effective treatments. Learning objectives:
Saint Francis Health System designates this live activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. For Psychologists: The Oklahoma State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, the American Psychological Association and the Oklahoma Psychological Association recognize AMA PRA Category 1 credit™. Saint Francis Health System is accredited by the OSMA For Social Workers: Saint Francis Health System is an approved provider of continuing education for social worker through the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Social Workers for 1 hour Category 1 Clinical. (CEP Number - 20230007) For CADCs and LADCs Saint Francis Health System is accredited as a provider of continuing education programs for CADCs and LADCs through the Oklahoma Board of Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselors. (1 hour) The LPC/LMFT This event as been approved by the State Board of Behavioral Health Licensure (BBHL) for 1 hour of CE. For questions , email: Lauren Haguewood at [email protected] Dr. Karl-Juergen Baer - November 1, 2022
"Central Mechanisms of the Autonomic System in Health and Disease" William K. Warren, Jr. Frontiers in Neuroscience Lecture 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm Program in the LPCH auditorium 11:00am - 11:45am Lunch will be served beforehand in the LPCH banquet room Dr. Karl-Juergen Baer is the Chief of Psychosomatic Medicine of the Universitaetsklinikum Jena in Jena, Germany. He is a psychiatrist and clinical scientist with over 200 publications in the area of neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and pathophysiology of prevalent conditions affecting mental health including mood disorders, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and pain syndromes. Learning objectives:
Karen Quigley, Ph.D. - Sept 7, 2022
"Why It Matters That A Brain Is In A Body" William K. Warren, Jr. Frontiers in Neuroscience Lecture 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm LPCH Auditorium Dr. Karen Quigley is Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University where she directs the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory. She is an affective scientist and biological psychologist whose basic science work examines the psychophysiological, behavioral and contextual features of affective experiences like emotion and stress. She also studies how interoception (i.e., sensory signaling from the organs of the body and use of this sense data by the brain) impacts affective experience and behavior. More broadly, her work focuses on how the body and brain together create experience and behavior. Her recent work focuses on understanding the sources of observed variation in patterns of physiological features that occur during different instances of the same emotional experience, such as when a person feels anger or fear. Contrary to common assumptions, the variation is quite large in the observed biological patterns of activity in the body and brain, even for emotional instances labeled with the same emotion word. So, the biological pattern associated with anger during one emotional instance in one person can be quite different from the pattern observed in the same person within a different context or the pattern observed in another person. This suggests that studies of emotion need to go beyond the laboratory and sample a much broader range of emotional instances in everyday life. To enable this work, Dr. Quigley innovated a new biologically-triggered experience sampling methodology that enhances the efficiency of sampling multimodal data, including self-reports, physiology, behavior, and context, which can be used in data-driven models to better understand what features of a person or the context serve to structure the variation. In her applied research, Dr. Quigley assesses affective experience and health outcomes in those experiencing negative functional impacts after major life events like a military deployment or in community members who have experienced a local terrorism event. In other applied work, she uses health technology, including a person’s own physiological data, to motivate a patient to make behavior changes with the goal of improving sleep, physical activity, and pain. Dr. Quigley is a former president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, and a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and an inaugural Fellow of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. She is a former Associate Editor for Psychophysiology, where she is currently a consulting editor. She also serves on the editorial boards of Affective Science and Biological Psychology. Learning objectives:
![]() LIBR Principal Investigators, Dr. Chun Chieh Fan, M.D., Ph.D. and Wesley Thompson, Ph.D., have co-authored a new paper in JAMA Neurology with collaborators from UCSD, UCSD School of Medicine, UCSF, University of Oslo and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reporting that individuals with two copies of the hemochromatosis risk gene mutation (one inherited from each parent) show substantial evidence iron buildup in regions of the brain responsible for movement, which may be a risk factor for developing movement disorders, such as Parkinson's Disease. Key Points Question: "To what extent does genetic risk for hemochromatosis affect the brain and contribute to risk for neurological disorders?" Finding: "In this cross-sectional study that included 836 participants, we found that individuals at high genetic risk for developing hemochromatosis had magnetic resonance imaging scans indicating substantial iron deposition localized to motor circuits of the brain. Further analysis of data for 488 288 individuals revealed that male individuals with high genetic risk for hemochromatosis (but not female individuals) were at 1.80-fold increased risk for developing a movement disorder, with the majority of these individuals not having a concurrent diagnosis for hemochromatosis." Meaning: "Genetic risk for hemochromatosis is associated with abnormal iron deposition in motor circuits and increased risk of movement disorders, regardless of formal diagnosis of hemochromatosis, and treatment for hemochromatosis that reduces iron overload may prove beneficial for male individuals at genetic risk for hemochromatosis who have movement disorders." Learn more about their groundbreaking research in the full press release from the University of California - San Diego. Original research article from JAMA Neurology: Association of Genetic Variant Linked to Hemochromatosis with Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging Measures of Iron and Movement Disorders The shooting event yesterday on the Saint Francis Hospital campus has many of us shaken, given an already unsettling state of mind following last week’s event in Uvalde, TX. Each person will begin to process these traumatic events based on their own history, thoughts and beliefs.
Here are a couple of things to consider: First, we experience these events both as an individual and as part of a community. We may be emotionally affected by a sense of loss of safety and control, and an increase in uncertainty. Second, those who are closest to the traumatic event will likely be the most affected by complex post-traumatic responses, including anxiety, depression, anger, numbness and disconnection. They will need help to regain a sense of safety and emotional stability. Third, these responses develop over an extended period. Even if we are not directly exposed, we should be mindful of encountering a person months from now who may continue to experience emotional difficulties following trauma. Fourth, there is evidence of various coping approaches that may result in more problems, e.g., substance and alcohol use are well-known to increase in some individuals following trauma. Fifth, processing these events within a framework of finding meaning, spirituality and benevolence may help to overcome the difficult and painful emotions many of us are feeling at this point in time. -Martin Paulus, M.D. Scientific Director and President |
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