Scientific Community Mourns the Loss of Prominent Schizophrenia Researcher George Bartzokis, M.D.
Scientific Community Mourns the Loss of Prominent Schizophrenia Researcher George Bartzokis, M.D.
Dr. George Bartzokis, who received two NARSAD Young Investigator Grants in the earliest years of the Foundation’s grant-giving activities (1988 and 1989), died following a brief illness at his home in Los Angeles, CA on August 22, 2014. Dr. Bartzokis, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California (UCLA), is remembered for the “huge impact” he made in the schizophrenia field.
Friends and colleagues, Jonathon Sherin, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer at Volunteers of America, and Mace Beckson, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA., say that, “Dr. Bartzokis has moved the field of psychiatry in profound ways that we are just now beginning to appreciate.” They offer the following summary of his work:
“Over the past 20 years, Dr. George Bartzokis has conceived of and supported a novel developmental model for neuropsychiatric diseases based upon what makes the human brain most unique: high myelin content and an extended developmental myelination phase. Dr. Bartzokis' "myelin model" cuts across the current symptom-based classification of neuropsychiatric disorders, emphasizing instead that dysregulations in myelination drive neuropsychiatric disorders across the life cycle. His model proposes that disruptions in myelin metabolism at defined developmental phases cause specific types of mental illness by undermining the synchrony of neurotransmission.
“In 2001, Dr. Bartzokis demonstrated in vivo that brain white matter content peaks in middle age and falls off with continued aging. In 2003, he demonstrated myelination trajectory deficiencies in schizophrenia. In 2007, he discovered that these myelination deficits are 'plastic' and that myelin-centered treatments (such as atypical antipsychotics) could alter the trajectory of schizophrenia. In 2009 he developed a real-time method for measuring late-developing intra-cortical myelin (ICM) and showed that the effects of atypical antipsychotics target primarily ICM.
“In 2011, Dr. Bartzokis proposed that treatment interventions in schizophrenia, ranging from omega-3 fatty acid supplementation to psychotropic medications, are explainable by his myelin model, an approach he has dubbed 'neuroglialpsychopharmacology.' Most recently, Dr. Bartzokis published the first prospective study to distinguish the myelin-generating effects of depot versus oral antipsychotics using MRI."
The Foundation joins with the larger scientific community in mourning the loss of this dedicated and talented researcher who made great strides forward to improve the lives of those with schizophrenia.
