| Principal Investigators
Daniel R. Weinberger, M.D. |
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Dr.
Weinberger is chief of the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch of the Intramural Research
Program, National Institute of Mental Health, National
Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He attended college at the Johns Hopkins
University and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and did residencies in psychiatry at
Harvard Medical School and in neurology at George Washington University. He is board certified in both
psychiatry and neurology. He is past president of the Society of Biological Psychiatry and a member of
the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. |
Research Interests |
Dr. Weinberger's laboratory studies basic mechanisms of pathogenesis of major psychiatric illness, especially schizophrenia. His group is interesting in characterizing the genetic mechanisms of susceptibility, studying individual gene effects on brain information processing in patients, in normal volunteers, across the aging cycle, and in animal models. The lab pursues translational projects ranging from genetic engineering in animals, to gene expression and regulation in cell systems and in human brain tissue, to studies of brain function with neuroimaging in living subjects, stratified by relevant genotype. His lab has identified the first specific genetic mechanism of risk for schizophrenia, and the first genetic effects that account for variation in specific human cognitive functions. In addition, he and his colleagues developed the first high fidelity animal model of schizophrenia. |
Representative Selected Recent Publications: |
- Weinberger DR, McClure
RK: Neurotoxicity, neuroplasticity, and magnetic resonance
imaging morphometry: What is happening in the schizophrenic
brain? Arch Gen Psychiatry,
59:553-558, 2002.
- Weinberger DR, Egan
MF, Bertolino A, Callicott JH, Mattay VS, Lipska BK,
Berman KF, Goldberg TE: Prefrontal neurons and the
genetics of schizophrenia. Biol Psychiatry
50:825-844, 2001.
- Hariri A, Mattay VS,
Tessitore A, Kolachaqna B, Fera F, Goldman, D, Egan
MF, Weinberger DR: Serotonin transporter genetic
variation and the response of the human amygdala.
Science, 297: 400-404, 2002.
- Egan MF, Goldberg TE,
Kolachana BS, Callicott JH, Mazzanti CM, Straub RE,
Goldman D, Weinberger DR: effect of COMT Val108/158
Met genotype on frontal lobe function and risk for
schizophrenia. PNAS
98:6917-6922, 2001.
- Lipska BK, Halim ND,
Segal PN, Weinberger DR: Effects of reversible
inactivation of the neonatal ventral hippocampus on
behavior in the adult rat. J Neurosci, 22:2835-2842, 2002.
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