The focus of The University of Iowa Mental Health Clinical Research Center is on understanding the neurobiology of mental phenomena and disease processes, with the long-term goals of translating our findings """"""""back"""""""" to the basic level of mechanisms and causes, and """"""""forward"""""""" to the clinical level of treatment. Our primary emphasis is on schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Because the boundaries between schizophrenia and many other major mental illnesses are not clear, however, we also seek to gain insights about the neural mechanisms of normal and abnormal mental phenomena by studying other conditions with known mechanisms that can serve as """"""""model syndromes"""""""" such as Huntington's disease or conditions with shared phenomenology and neurodevelopmental origins such as autism. The CRC consists of four core units and six research units. The Administrative Core is responsible for maintaining centralized records of all protocols, managing a five bed inpatient research unit, and coordinating the efforts of investigators between themselves and with the institution as a whole. The Assessment and Training Core maintains a core assessment battery, provides a training and calibration program for the various instruments used in CRC protocols, conducts studies of reliability, and develops new assessment techniques. The Biostatistics Core provides biostatistical consulting and collaboration to investigators at all stages of the research effort, maintains a centralized core data base, and provides quality assurance at all levels of core data processing. The Image Analysis Core provides a centralized resource for the analysis of imaging data, including the development of new software and image analysis techniques, training on the use of workstations, and a quality assurance program. The Diagnosis and Phenomenology Unit examines approaches to improving the definition of the phenotype. The Structural Imaging Unit examines anatomical aspects of schizophrenia and related disorders, with an emphasis on identifying neural circuits and linking MR findings to basic neurobiology through neuropathology studies. The Functional Imaging Unit emphasizes the use of 150 water technique in order to explore cognitive systems in normal individuals (i.e., attention, memory, language, and mood) and in various disease processes, including schizophrenia, autism, and substance abuse. The Cognitive Neuroscience Unit uses the techniques of experimental cognitive psychology and neuropsychology to focus on the relationship between cognitive systems and disease processes. The Basic and Clinical NeuroPharmacology Unit studies genetic regulation of drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and the effects of medications on cognition and blood flow through the use of PET and fMR.
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