Department News
The Center on Early Onset Bipolar Disorder

The Department of Psychiatry is on the threshold of major discoveries that will benefit patients with severe psychiatric disorders and improve the quality of life for them, their families, and communities. One of only three departments nationally with both a child institute (IJR) and a neuroscience institute (PI), we are in a remarkable position for integrative and translational research that can, in a very real sense, save lives. Perhaps our greatest opportunities and challenges lie in designing interventions for children and adolescents, and in being the first genuine practitioners in the nascent field of preventive juvenile psychiatry.

For nearly a century, the Institute for Juvenile Research has upheld a tradition of integrating strong empirical work with sound understanding of clinical and training implications. Our research team is committed to advancing the field of child psychiatry, and to improving the lives of children with mental illness. One of many important efforts currently underway at the Institute is a plan to establish the first pediatric mood disorders clinic in the Chicago area.

The Institute and the Department are ideally positioned to establish such a clinic. Over the past ten years, we have recruited and fostered a groundbreaking neurochemistry research team that is exploring the mechanisms of serious mental illness. Directed by Dr. Erminio Costa, MD, a National Academy of Science member, this team last year identified abnormally low levels of a newly discovered protein, reelin, in the brain and blood of patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. NIMH Director Steve Hyman and Science editor Floyd Bloom declared this research the most important breakthrough in explaining these disorders in the past 30 years. Two other universities have replicated UIC's findings.

Dr. John Sweeney, a leading innovator in the use of functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the brain, has just recently joined the Department. He and his team have been advancing understanding of the changes in brain chemistry during mental tasks and identifying promising early and even pre-symptomatic indicators of serious mental illnesss. Dr. Sweeney, and a UIC colleague, Dr. Keith Thulborn, will have access to the world's largest functional imaging magnet for human use, soon to be built here at UIC -- a 9.4 tesla fMRI.

These advances compliment our already strong group of psychopharmocology researchers, led by Dr. John Davis (Gilman Professor of Psychiatry) and Dr. Phil Janicak, an international expert on bipolar disorder and the editor of the standard textbook in the field in psychopharmacology.

Dr. Patrick Tolan, who became Director of the Institute for Juvenile Research in September 2000, has over the past ten years built a research group nationally recognized as a leader in prevention research, particularly related to children's psychiatric problems. He has successfully recruited several talented investigators and the Institute has over 14 federally funded prevention/intervention studies. Under Dr. Tolan's direction, the Institute is poised to move to a national leadership role in prevention, developmental psychopathology, and research on services to children and families with mental illnesses.

As Director, Dr. Tolan emphasizes clinical approaches that integrate research on the causes of mental illness with the most promising intervention strategies, while respecting the value of bridging these intervention strategies to meet the needs of families. This approach is well illustrated in the recruitment of Mani Pavuluri M.D., to establish and develop our child pediatric mood disorders clinic. Prior to joining IJR, Dr. Pavuluri was trained in Australia by psychiatrists and developmental experts who have begun treating "prodromal" (very early and usually unnoticed) symptoms in children at-risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Using novel and standard antipsychotic agents, Dr. Pavuluri and her group have found these illnesses are greatly attenuated by early intervention before brain chemistry begins to change. Dr. Pavuluri has brought this perspective to clinical administration and training, and has undertaken research collaborations with Dr. Janicak and others to test the most promising interventions for children with this problem.

We propose to propel this developing work by forming a center program that brings these investigators together, along with other international consultants to undertake a concentrated program for early identification and interventions in bipolar disorder and associated mood disorders. Cutting edge imaging and genomic research endeavors will push the knowledge base, as well as our ability to identify juvenile mental illness and explore pharmacologic and gene therapy treatments in preteen children at high risk for bipolar disorder, as evidenced by family and personal history. We expect that as we improve the accuracy of predicting bipolar disorder, and as we develop and apply preventive efforts, we will be able to provide truly preventive interventions. The proposed center will unite the expertise and organizational capability of the Institute of Juvenile Research with the basic scientific resources in the Department to permit key recruitment and collaborative work. From this proven foundation, we will form the premier pediatric mood disorders research center, which will address one of the major and most tragic problems of children and families of our country.