Research
Conducted by Dr. London, Prof. of Psychiatry at UCLA. Call toll free: 888-791-9988
There are currently two primary research studies underway within our center. Each study employs the most recent neuroimaging techniques. In addition we have a study under the umbrella of the Consortium for Neuropsychiatric Phenomics in which we are studying Response Inhibition.
The CTRA addresses the need to identify treatments and therapies by integrating preclinical studies to directly inform clinical research on drug addiction and leveraging clinical insights to help target basic science approaches. The Center links basic scientists who have made significant contributions to knowledge of the neurobiological components of addiction with clinical investigators who are at the forefront in treatment research. Read more...
The UCLA, Adolescent Smoking Cessation Center (ASCC) provides a comprehensive research program to investigate the biological factors that contribute to initiation and maintenance of teen smoking and that pose barriers to success in smoking cessation; the goals of this research program include developing and evaluating treatments to promote adolescent smoking cessation. To accomplish these objectives, our program makes use of a unique infrastructure and highly interactive environment for mechanistic studies of teen smoking and smoking cessation at the levels of behavior, neural systems, and genetics.
The ultimate goal is the discovery, testing and delivery of effective interventions for promoting cessation of tobacco smoking among adolescents. Read more...
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and bipolar disorder (BP) are neuropsychiatric disorders that can have deleterious lifetime impact. Several candidate genes for these disorders have emerged, but functionally significant variants have not yet been identified and replications are sparse. Our premise is that elucidating the genetic basis of these complex disorders will benefit from analysis of more parsimonious and less heterogeneous endophenotypes. Impaired response inhibition (RI) (i.e., difficulty suppressing automatic or already initiated responses) is a promising candidate endophenotype for multiple disorders. We propose that the genes that influence RI contribute to ADHD and BP susceptibility through effects on the brain systems mediating inhibitory control, and that most of these have been undetected by previous studies using syndromal status as the phenotypic target.
Therefore, we plan a study on the biological bases of impaired RI, in a large sample (n=2000) of healthy subjects drawn from greater Los Angeles. We will administer a battery of RI and impulsivity-spectrum neurocognitive and self-report measures, analyzing the phenotypes and identifying composite measures through data reduction efforts, including those of the WGS project in this consortium. We will first identify candidate SNPs in a whole genome association study of the entire sample, and conduct fine mapping analyses to refine the localization of the most significant associations. We will then select well-validated candidate SNPs to genotype in clinical samples that exhibit RI deficits (n =100 each, ADHD & BP) and 200 matched controls, and test for associations with brain structure and function using MRI.
RI deficits are central to ADHD, BP and other disorders (e.g., drug addiction, obesity) that are of public health concern and are resistant to current therapies. Clarifying the bases of RI, at genetic and neural systems levels, can advance treatment for these prevalent and often life-threatening disorders
