Background

Yale University School of Medicine researchers received a $9 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 2001 to help translate research findings about alcoholism into treatment for patients. The new Center for Translational Neuroscience of Alcoholism (CTNA) was formed to create links between basic research advances and the development of new treatments for alcoholism.
It was a Yale researcher, E. M. Jellinek, who pioneered the hypothesis that alcoholism is a medical illness. Over the years, researchers have identified ethanol targets in the brain and specific genes that show vulnerability for alcoholism. With new imaging tools to look at brain chemicals, and molecular genetics studies, we now have an opportunity to observe broad clinical implications from molecular neuroscience.

CTNA is designed to better define the biochemical and functional characteristics of a brain circuit that appears to be involved in the vulnerability to alcoholism and the characteristics of alcohol dependence. This circuit involves a brain region involved in higher cognitive processes, the frontal cortex, and emotion, the limbic system. The "translational" mission of the Center involves the effort to use fundamental insights gained from basic research to guide clinical research studies in people vulnerable to developing alcoholism or suffering with alcoholism. These mechanistic human research studies are possible because of new advances in molecular genetics as well as in positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that make it feasible to study many aspects of the structure, chemistry, and function of specific regions in the brain.

Dr. John Krystal, CTNA Director, notes the critical nature of the collaboration between scientists and the community in solving the urgent problems associated with alcohol dependence. "We can only accomplish the goals of the Center with the help of people in the community who participate in studies." CTNA projects are actively seeking healthy individuals with and without family histories of alcohol problems as well as heavy social drinkers as well as people who are alcohol-dependent or heavy drinkers.

RECENT AWARD

Two Yale CTNA investigators received the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) APIRE/Kempf Fund Award for Research Development in Psychobiological Psychiatry at the association's annual meeting May 5, 2005. Dr. John Krystal, CTNA Director, the Robert L. McNeil Jr. Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and deputy chair for research in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and Dr. Daniel Mathalon, Pilot Investigator and assistant professor of psychiatry, were recognized for providing new insights into the neurobiology and treatment of cognitive impairments associated with schizophrenia. Their award-winning research studied the interplay of glutamate and dopamine systems in cognitive functions associated with the prefrontal cortex.
The Kempf Fund Award recognizes the senior Researcher, Krystal, for his scientific contributions to the field of schizophrenia research and his mentorship of an outstanding young scientist. This award also supports the young investigator, Mathalon, with a research career development award.