Dr. Zarate and colleagues gave a single dose of ketamine to 36 treatment-resistant patients with bipolar disorder. The drug, experimental in this application, worked remarkably well, reducing anhedonia —feelings of apathy and inability to enjoy oneself—within 40 minutes. The effect lasted up to two weeks and did not correlate with the status of other depressive symptoms. There is no approved treatment for anhedonia, which is also common in schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, drug addiction and mood and anxiety disorders.

In 2013, NARSAD Grantee Kirsty Spalding, Ph.D., and team at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, used an innovative methodology to identify the “birth date” of neurons in deceased human brains. They found a way to “carbon date” neurons by testing brain specimens from deceased adult humans who lived through the middle of the last century, during a period of above-ground nuclear bomb testing and elevated atmospheric levels of carbon-14. The researchers were able to quantify the amount of carbon-14 stamped into DNA when a new neuron is born, essentially “carbon dating” the neurons.

Foundation Grantee Andrew Miller, M.D., is the senior author of a study that demonstrates improvements in symptoms of depression in patients with high inflammation levels. The study was published in the online version of Archives of General Psychiatry on September 3, 2012.

An Impressive Year of Progress: from establishing early intervention techniques and working toward diagnostic tools, to proving the effectiveness of next generation therapies, to advancing basic research and our understanding of how the brain functions and can malfunction, and continuing to refine the use of new technologies – this highlight of NARSAD-Grant funded discoveries in 2011 demonstrates how Foundation-funded research spans across research disciplines to better understand and treat all mental illness.

Hongjun Song, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, is intrigued about niches in a brain structure called the hippocampus where stem cells live and can give rise to new neurons, a process called neurogenesis. With the support of a 2008 NARSAD Independent Investigator Grant, Dr. Song and team developed a genetic strategy for tracing the life cycle of precursor cells in the brain. What they found was that any single stem cell is capable of both replacing itself and of giving rise to both neurons and glia.