Untangling Brain Circuits in Mental Illness

Depression. Anxiety Disorders. Addiction.

Theyre some of the most common conditions affecting peoples health, and for millions with the most severe cases, conventional treatments such as psychotherapy and medication dont work adequately or simply dont work at all.

What if there were a treatment that could target the specific brain circuits that caused these conditions and offer patients a long-lasting solution?

National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins and President Barack Obama held a news conference in April 2013 to launch the Brain Initiative, a $100 million challenge to uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders like Alzheimers, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury. Photo by Chuck Kennedy/White House

A team of scientists and physicians led by UC San Francisco is launching a $26 million project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to map the human brain circuits that go awry in neuropsychiatric disorders and employ advanced technology to correct these patterns.

Its one of the first projects launched in support of the $100 million Brain Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies), announced by President Barack Obama last year to support research on treating, preventing and perhaps curing brain disorders such as Alzheimers, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy and traumatic brain injury. Because psychiatric conditions disproportionately affect soldiers and veterans, DARPA a major partner in the Brain Initiative is seeking the most original approaches to treatment-resistant mental illnesses through its new Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (SUBNETS) program.

Human brain recording can now reveal aspects of mental illness that have been inaccessible to scientists and doctors, said UCSF neurosurgeon Edward F. Chang, MD, who is leading the project. By analyzing patterns of interaction among brain regions known to be involved in mental illness we can get a more detailed look than ever before at what might be malfunctioning, and we can then develop technology to correct it.

The technology itself already exists to help people with their motor skills.

UCSFs neurology and neuroscience departments consistently are among the best in the nation.

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Untangling Brain Circuits in Mental Illness