Project Summary

Harold Sackeim, Ph.D. (Distinguished Investigator 2006) of The New York Psychiatric Institute, will seek to demonstrate that a new nonconvulsive and noninvasive brain stimulation intervention--focal electrically administered therapy, or FEAT--can independently modulate dopamine concentrations in distinct brain regions. Dr. Sackeim will investigate FEAT in rodents and primates, and will study changes in dopamine concentration in humans using PET imaging. Different symptoms for one psychiatric disorder may occur because of disturbances in neurotransmitter regulation not only specific to particular neural pathways, but also may differ with distinct types of abnormality in different brain regions. Current drug treatments involve systemic administration, which may not adequately address opposing types of abnormality in spatially distinct brain regions, and the widespread distribution of the drug is largely responsible for side effects and intolerance. While electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has powerful antipsychotic and anti-parkinsonian properties, and markedly reduces the extrapyramidal symptoms that often accompany antipsychotics, the benefit of ECT is a dopamine increase that results from the electrical stimulation and not the induced seizure. Therefore, a new method of targeted stimulation that does not result in seizures may offer a good alternative for producing local increases in dopamine concentration in certain areas of the brain without typical side effects.

Program Area: MULTIPLE FOCUS\Anxiety Disorders/Mood Disorders\Anxiety Disorders/Unipolar

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