Welcome from the Director

Martin Paulus, M.D.
President and Scientific Director

"Since arriving at LIBR in 2014, I have been enormously energized by the opportunity to make a real difference using neuroscience to improve the life of patients with mental illness. At the same time, I recognize this is a very challenging task, which cannot be accomplished overnight. However, with a thoughtful eye on what is doable, we are hoping to make a measureable impact on ways to assess and treat patients within five years.

We have started a major study at LIBR, the Tulsa 1000, or T-1000. The goal for this study is to determine whether neuroscience-based measures can be used to predict outcomes in patients with mental illness. In particular, we are trying to determine what factors best predict who will respond well to a particular treatment. The study is a definitive step towards developing a science-based personalized medicine approach in mental health. Unfortunately, mental health treatment providers are still using guesswork and intuition in matching treatments to patients. As a consequence mental health treatment is fundamentally a trial and error endeavor, which can result in prolonged suffering if treatments do not work. The hope is that we will be able to use scientific approaches to more precisely match patients to treatments."
Dr. Paulus joins JAMA Psychiatry Editorial Board
Congratulations to Dr. Martin Paulus for being appointed to the Editorial Board of the top-ranked psychiatry journal, JAMA Psychiatry.

Meet the Investigators

Sahib Khalsa, M.D., Ph.D.
Director of Clinical Studies

Main Question
How does the connection between brain and body determine physical and mental health?

Approach
Use infusions of medicines to change how the body feels, and evaluate how this influences physiology, emotional experience and brain activity in individuals with eating and anxiety disorders. Also studying the heart-brain connection in individuals with cardiac arrhythmias (e.g., how implantable cardioverter defibrillators can induce psychiatric disorders).
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Future Directions
To determine whether abnormal brain body connections predict psychiatric problems in eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and cardiac arrhythmias. To determine whether systematically retraining the brain body connection reduces psychopathology and could yield new therapeutics for these disorders.

Dr. Khalsa is currently the Director of Clinical Studies at LIBR, Assistant Professor at the School of Community Medicine at the University of Tulsa, OK and Volunteer Faculty Member, Department of Psychiatry, at the University of Oklahoma.

What's New & Noteworthy

Dr. Sahib Khalsa Receives K23 Award from NIMH

Congratulations to Dr. Sahib Khalsa for receiving a K23 Award from the NIMH for his research project titled: Neural Basis of Meal Related Interoceptive Dysfunction in Anorexia Nervosa. This five-year grant will allow Dr. Khalsa to make progress toward understanding how the brain and body respond to food in people with anorexia nervosa. 
iSummit 2016

From November 14-16, LIBR brought together a multidisciplinary group of leading scientists and thought leaders, with the goal of accelerating progress in interoception research and ultimately improving mental health outcomes. Conference activities included keynote presentations and roundtable workshop discussions. Thank you to everyone who joined us at LIBR and the PostOak Lodge and Retreat for this landmark gathering!
LIBR Awarded Prestigious Grant

LIBR is pleased to announce that we have been awarded a prestigious grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) along with 12 other research institutions as part of a landmark study about the effects of adolescent substance use on the developing brain. This study will be a unique opportunity for the Tulsa region to contribute to a national effort to better understand the brain.

William K. Warren Jr. "Frontiers in Neuroscience" Conferences Series

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2017

Speaker: Dr. Gary Glover, Stanford University
Topic: TBD
Location: Laureate Conference Center, 6655 South Yale Ave, Tulsa, OK 74136
Time: 11:00-11:45 a.m. Lunch (registration required), 12:00-1 p.m. Presentation

To register for the event, email Lauren Haguewood at lehaguewood@saintfrancis.com
This event is free and open to the public.

Healthy Brains for a Healthy Oklahoma

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Tulsa 1000 Update

In January 2015, LIBR launched the groundbreaking new Tulsa 1000 (T-1000) study. In our first year, we enrolled 164 of the 1000 participants. Currently, over 600 people have completed the baseline study and new participants are continuing to enroll each week. 

The T-1000 aims to determine how biological and objective behavioral measures can improve assessment and treatment of people with disorders of mood and anxiety, eating and substance use. 1000 people from Tulsa and the surrounding areas will be recruited to enter the study.

To learn more about participating in research at LIBR, please visit our Ongoing Studies section, call 918-502-5100, or email info@laureateinstitute.org.