A renewal of this Geriatric Mental Health Academic Award is sought in order to further Dr. Tariot's development as an academic geriatric psychiatrist. This will enable him to extend and broaden work initiated during the first period of the Award, pursue new scientific lines of inquiry, develop and implement new and more refined investigative strategies, continue to develop other researchers, and introduce research findings regarding mental disorders of the aged. During the period of this Award to date, Dr. Tariot has been appointed to Associate Professor of Psychiatry and of Medicine at the University of Rochester, has become Director of the Laboratory of Psychopharmacology of the NIMH University of Rochester Clinical Research Center for Study of Psychopathology of the Elderly, and is achieving academic success as measured by several traditional indicators. There are two goals for this Award: 1) to continue clinical phenomenologic and neuropharmacologic studies articulated in the original application for the Award; and 2) to foster and develop new clinical and preclinical preventative pharmacologic strategies. There are three themes guiding the attainment of Goal 1. The first is phenomenology, pursued by the prospective characterization of psychiatric and behavioral disorders found in the long-term care setting and in outpatients with dementia of the Alzheimer-type. The second is symptomatic pharmacotherapy, pursued by the study of the symptomatic benefit of carbamazepine and deprenyl in patients with dementia. The third is neurochemical mechanisms, pursued via pharmacologic challenge studies manipulating the cholinergic system in a variety of populations. Goal 2 will be pursued by clinical studies as well as new preclinical studies that are now being developed. The latter will examine the functional capability and plasticity of the basal forebrain cholinergic system using partial lesions in aged rodents. The eventual outcome of these studies will be pharmacological manipulation of this model. The Department of Psychiatry and Monroe Community Hospital will continue to support Dr. Tariot's academic development administratively, financially, and by facilitation of the scientific and technical collaborations necessary for him to acquire basic science skills.
