We propose to explore the neurobiological basis of Down syndrome, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders using novel methods for measuring cortical neuroanatomy. We will develop and validate methods for measuring surface area, thickness, and thickness distribution of cortical structures, and use these methods in four subject groups: healthy individuals, and patients with Down syndrome, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. We hypothesize that surface area and thickness measures will be more informative that conventional volume measures, and that patients with Down syndrome will have global cortical deficits. We believe that specific cortical regions will be affected in schizophrenia (heteromodal cortex) and bipolar disorder (entorhinal cortex). Although we focus here on three diseases, we believe that the methods that we will develop would be useful to researchers studying other diseases too. We plan to make our soDware (written in the JAVA language and thus portable to most popular computers including C's, Mac's and Unix-based systems) available on the laboratory's web site.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH060590-03
Application #
6490873
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BDCN-6 (01))
Program Officer
Rumsey, Judith M
Project Start
2000-01-01
Project End
2004-12-31
Budget Start
2002-01-01
Budget End
2002-12-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2002
Total Cost
$349,044
Indirect Cost
Name
Johns Hopkins University
Department
Psychiatry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
045911138
City
Baltimore
State
MD
Country
United States
Zip Code
21218
Barta, Patrick; Dazzan, Paola (2003) Hemispheric surface area: sex, laterality and age effects. Cereb Cortex 13:364-70