Project Summary

Larry J. Seidman, Ph.D. (Independent Investigator 2004) of Harvard Medical School, plans to study what brain and neurocognitive abnormalities precede and may predict the onset of bipolar disorder 1 and which may predict psychosis. Such information is important to understand if early intervention and prevention efforts are to be successful, particularly because psychosis is an outcome in approximately 4 to 8 percent of the cases (compared to 0. 5-1 percent in the general population). There is a great deal of theoretical interest in the possible overlap between bipolar disorder 1 and schizophrenia, as genetic and postmortem brain studies identify common and distinct abnormalities. In the proposed study, Dr. Seidman plans on looking at relatives of people with bipolar disorder 1 to identify behaviors and symptoms that might be disease-like but not the disease per se, but could be markers for early-stage illness. He will assess brain function and genetic traits in these people and compare them to known traits in people with schizophrenia. He also will establish a structure for the recruitment of people with bipolar disease 1 for large-scale, longitudinal studies and to employ data already collected from genetic studies with those at high-risk schizophrenia.

Program Area: MULTIPLE FOCUS AREAS\Bipolar Disorder/Schizophrenia

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