"Challenges and Opportunities in Mental Health Research"
William K. Warren, Jr. Frontiers in Neuroscience Lecture
Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital Conference Center
11:00am - 11:45 am Registration and Lunch, lunch stops being served at 11:45 - no exceptions
12:00pm - 1:00pm Program
Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D. pursued a combined MD/PhD degree at the University of
California, San Francisco. Medical school coursework in psychiatry and neuroscience convinced
him that the greatest need, and greatest promise, for biomedical science was in these areas.
During his Ph.D. thesis with Dr. Michael Stryker, Dr. Gordon pioneered the methods necessary
to study brain plasticity in the mouse visual system.
Upon completion of the dual degree program at UCSF, Dr. Gordon went to Columbia University
for his Psychiatry residency and research fellowship because of the breadth and depth of the
research opportunities here. Working with Dr. Rene Hen, Dr. Gordon and colleagues studied the
role of the hippocampus, a brain structure known to be important for memory, in emotional
processes such as anxiety and depression. He joined the Columbia faculty in 2004 as an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry.
Dr. Gordon’s research focuses on the analysis of neural activity in mice carrying mutations of
relevance to psychiatric disease. His lab studies genetic models of these diseases from an
integrative neuroscience perspective, focused on understanding how a given disease mutation
leads to a behavioral phenotype across multiple levels of analysis. To this end, he employs a
range of systems neuroscience techniques, including in vivo anesthetized and awake behaving
recordings and optogenetics, which is the use of light to control neural activity. His work has
direct relevance to schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and depression.
Three learning objectives:
- Understand the role of the NIMH in supporting neuroscience and psychiatry research.
- Understand how neural circuit approaches hold promises for advancing understanding and novel treatments for mental illnesses.
- Understand how computational approaches hold promises for advancing understanding and novel treatments for mental illnesses.
To register, email: Lauren Haguewood at lehaguewood@saintfrancis.com