Basic Neuroscience Related Content

Every day on the job, Dawn Morrissey draws inspiration from McLean Hospital’s past. “When I walk through the hallway leading to the Administration Building on my way to meetings, I always look at the pictures on the wall of the female nurses, doctors, and scientists who have worked at McLean over...

Survival. In an animal kingdom enriched by a diversity of species, it is the one trait shared by organisms as simple as worms and as complex as humans. And the proof is in a protein with the hopelessly complex name of pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide. Commonly referred to by...

Fight or flight. It’s a basic response to a perceived threat in all animals, from the fly to the human. In complex vertebrates, including mammals, it is controlled by an almond-shaped cluster of neurons in the brain called the amygdala. This cluster regulates both pleasure and fear. Scientists have...

To sleep, perchance to dream. Except when those dreams turn into nightmares replaying a traumatic event from the past. That’s why the study of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption is a central element of the 5-year, $13.5 million research effort at McLean Hospital that hopes to better understand...

Read the latest on the breakthroughs that McLean’s researchers are making in identifying the roots of PTSD. Identifying the Roots of PTSD Survival. In an animal kingdom enriched by a diversity of species, it is the one trait shared by organisms as simple as worms and as complex as humans. And the...

The tenth annual McLean Research Day took place on Wednesday, January 30, 2019. The event featured approximately 125 posters of new research from McLean investigators across the hospital, representing basic science, translational, clinical, neuroimaging, health services, and implementation science...

Imagine if depression or obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) could be treated with non-drug therapies, such as those currently being used to tackle Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. Suzanne Haber, PhD, is working toward that goal in her labs at McLean Hospital and the University of...

Ross J. Baldessarini, MD, originally thought he wanted to be an industrial organic chemist, not a doctor. The prospect of medical school didn’t thrill the Williams College chemistry major. He found it to be more like a trade school than an academic endeavor, not to mention it being “cutthroat and...

For decades, scientists have known that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is a key factor in the development of neuropsychiatric disorders. But recent discoveries in the Angiogenesis and Brain Development Laboratory of Anju Vasudevan, PhD, have literally opened a new pathway. Disruptions in prenatal...

This edition of Discovery demonstrates some of the depth and breadth of research at McLean Hospital. With hundreds of hardworking researchers who hail from all parts of the world, our robust research program has all the tools to bring research from the bench to the bedside. There is much more...

Why does one person who experienced severe childhood adversity become homeless or addicted, while another with a similar background builds a loving family life and a thriving career? Is the answer in our genes, or perhaps in how trauma affects our genes? A collaboration between McLean Hospital and...

Former Board Chair David Barlow has endowed a fellowship that forges a closer relationship between two institutions that are dear to his heart: McLean Hospital and his alma mater, Bates College. The John Kelsey Fellowship is named after the retired Bates professor who built the college’s...

The ultimate solution to the opioid crisis is answering the question of what causes addiction and whether it is possible to treat it more effectively or even prevent it. That’s the challenge Elena H. Chartoff, PhD, is taking on in her laboratory. As director of the Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior...

When the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC) at McLean receives a brain donation, with permission, staff comb through the donor’s medical records to glean critical information. It’s a painstaking and manual process, but now, thanks to a million-dollar endowment from The Manton Foundation...

McLean Hospital’s Joseph T. Coyle, MD, widely renowned for his revolutionary neuroscience research that has led to improved clinical care for those with mental illness worldwide, was honored today by the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) with the 2017 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in...