The Mind Research Network - Research

Research

Since 1998, MRN has evolved into a multi-million dollar organization whose research mission has expanded to include addiction, autism, psychopathy, creativity, dementia, traumatic brain injury, and schizophrenia. A sampling of MRN’s research is described below.

Schizophrenia: MRN is addressing this severe mental illness through the following separate, but interconnected research programs:

• The Mind Clinical Imaging Consortium (MCIC) collected data from 178 patients and 170 healthy controls using fMRI and MEG.
• The FIRST Program is an extension of the MCIC with a focus on early diagnosis of schizophrenia, which is important in understanding the development of this illness and providing more effective care.
• Study on Aberrant Functional Connectivity in Psychosis focuses on the development of procedures to aid in the differential diagnosis of schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder at early stages.
• The Prodrome Project (EARLY Program) is focused on early detection and intervention for the prevention of psychosis in adolescents.
• The Sensory Gating and Dual Diagnosis program examines the effects of comorbid substance abuse on psychotic symptoms.

Psychopathy: Understanding the mental processes behind illegal behavior is the first step in providing better therapy for inmates, which will help reduce recidivism rates and decrease the cost of criminal behavior to society. This research utilizes MRN’s one-of-a-kind mobile MRI unit, which is driven from site to site and located inside the grounds of adult correctional facilities and juvenile detention centers.

Traumatic Brain Injury: TBI has been described as a “hallmark injury” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Diagnosis of traumatic brain injury is complicated by the lack of truly objective criteria. Current clinical tools lack the sensitivity to accurately diagnose these injuries. However, MRN’s research is currently utilizing newer neuroimaging techniques to investigate the neuropathalogy of acute mild to moderate TBI and the subsequent recovery of function in this population.

• TBI accounts for more than 25% of wounds suffered by returning veterans.
• Technological improvements and better emergency medical care have reduced the incidence of severe TBI; however, the number of patients with mild or moderate TBI has increased dramatically due to blast injuries.

Positive Neuroscience: The positive neuroscience initiative was created to bring to light individual differences in aspects of human behavior that provide positive benefits to society, as related to:

• Intelligence: Seeking to better understand the contribution of white matter health and integrity to cognitive capacity and function both in healthy normal controls and neurological patient populations.
• Creativity: Where in the human brain does creative thought emerge and how does it interact with personality and intelligence?
• Healthy Aging: This component of research is designed to address ways in which we can understand the links between brain structure (chemical, morphological, water diffusion) and preserved cognitive capacity over time.

Neurodevelopment: The neurodevelopment initiative was developed to optimize the use of the unique babySQUID MEG system in order to develop sensitive measures of brain dysfunction early in life and to provide appropriate and early intervention. It is currently being used to identify:

• Early markers associated with epilepsy in young children to improve diagnosis and treatment before long-term damage associated with chronic epilepsy occurs
• Biomarkers for autism to provide objective measures for diagnosis and early identification to allow for early intervention
• Early signs of brain dysfunction associated with prenatal exposure to alcohol to provide a more sensitive measure than is currently available through behavioral and neuroimaging testing