Psychiatry

Profile

Quinn M. Biggs is a Research Scientist at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress and has been with the Center since 2007. Dr. Biggs received his Bachelors in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin, Masters in Public Health from the University of North Texas Health Science Center, and Doctorate in Clinical Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine from the University of North Texas. He completed internship and fellowship training programs in consultation/liaison behavioral health at St. James Hospital in Olympia Fields, Illinois and while there facilitated trauma and other support groups and worked with local and regional authorities to develop plans for emergency psychological responses to disasters and terrorism.

Dr. Biggs worked for more than 10 years in inpatient, outpatient and residential psychiatric and chemical dependency treatment programs with patients of all ages. He conducted research in the psychiatric consequences of transportation traumas, reduction of dental anxiety and tailoring health messages for chemical dependency populations and is published in the scientific literature. His interests include psychological responses to traumatic injury, clinical and community responses to disasters and terrorism, as well as treatment and recovery following traumatic experiences.

Profile

Kwang Choi, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Choi received B.S. and M.A. in Biology from the Dongguk University in South Korea and Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Psychiatry from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He completed a postdoctoral work at the Dept of Psychiatry of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, TX, and worked as a Scientist in the Stanley Laboratory of Brain Research, Rockville, MD.

The long-term goal of Dr. Choi's research is to better understand the biological mechanisms of stress, anxiety and substance abuse. He is conducting a translational research using clinically relevant animal models of stress and drug abuse as well as postmortem brain tissue of psychiatric patients including mood and anxiety disorders. He is currently using various animals models such as intravenous drug self-administration and fear/anxiety behavior as well as non-invasive brain imaging technology (FDG-PET and MRI) to study molecular mechanisms of comorbid anxiety disorders and substance abuse. These approaches complement each other by elucidating the neurobiological mechanisms mediated by biological and environmental factors contributing to vulnerability or resilience to fear/anxiety and substance abuse. By identifying the mechanisms in which drugs and environment interact, and change the brain to lead to psychiatric symptoms, we can develop improved treatments of a comorbid substance abuse and anxiety disorders.

Selected Publications

Choi KH, Clements RLH, Greenshaw AJ (2005) Simultaneous AMPA/kainite receptor blockade and dopamine D2/3 receptor stimulation in the nucleus accumbens decreases brain stimulation reward in rats. Behav. Brain Res. 158:79-88

Choi KH, Elashoff M, Higgs BW, Song J, Kim S, Sabunciyan S, Diglisic S, Yolken RH, Knable M, Torrey EF and Webster MJ (2008) Putative psychosis genes in the prefrontal cortex: combined analysis of gene expression microarrays. BMC Psychiatry 8:87

Choi KH, Zepp ME, Higgs, BW, Weickert CS, Webster MJ (2009) Expression profiles of schizophrenia susceptibility genes during human prefrontal cortex development. J. Psychiatry and Neuroscience 34:450

Choi KH, Higgs BW, Wendland JR, Song J, McMahon FJ, Webster MJ (2011) Gene expression and genetic variation data implicate PCLO in bipolar disorder. Biological Psychiatry 69:353-9

Choi KH, Edwards, S, Graham, DL, Han, MH, Larson, EB, Whisler, KN, Simmons, D, Rahman, Z, Monteggia, LM, Eisch, AJ, Neve, RL, Nestler, EJ, Self, DW (2011) Reinforcement-Related Regulation of AMPA Glutamate Receptor Subunits in the Ventral Tegmental Area Enhances Cocaine Reinforcement. Journal of Neuroscience, 31:7927–7937

Choi KH, Le T, McGuire J, Xing G, Zhang L, Li H, Parker CC, Johnson LR and Ursano RJ (2012) Expression pattern of the cannabinoid receptor genes in the frontal cortex of mood disorder patients and mice selectively bred for high and low fear. J Psychiatric Research, 46:882-889

Chief, Molecular Neurobiology Section, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health at Bethesda, Maryland.

Mechanisms and actions of mood-stabilizing drugs, and the mechanisms of apoptosis and its implications in neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases

Research goals: Investigation of the mechanisms and actions of mood-stabilizing drugs as well as the mechanisms of apoptosis and its implications in neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases.

Dr. Chuang's laboratory has provided the first evidence that the mood-stabilizer lithium robustly protects CNS neurons from glutamate-induced excitotoxicity. His group also identified potential mechanisms underlying lithium neuroprotection, which include inactivation of NMDA receptors, activation of cell survival pathways, up-regulation of anti-apoptotic genes, and down-regulation of pro-apoptotic genes. His team also demonstrated that lithium reduces brain damage in rodent models of stroke and a rat excitotoxic model of Huntington's disease. In addition, Dr. Chuang and his collaborators have documented that glyceraldehydes-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), sometimes referred to as a house keeping gene, is in fact involved in the occurrence of neuronal apoptosis and could be linked to the pathogenesis of certain neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Chuang has received the NIH Director's Award in 1997, the 2002 NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award, and was inducted into the Academia Sinica in Taiwan in 2006.

Profile

Stephen J. Cozza, M.D. is Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University where he serves as Associate Director, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He received his medical degree from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He completed his residency in General Psychiatry and fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. Dr. Cozza is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in the specialties of General Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He has served in a variety of positions of responsibility in the Department of Psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to include Chief, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Service, Program Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program and Chief, Department of Psychiatry. He retired from the U.S. Army in 2006 after 25 years of military service.

Dr. Cozza's professional interests have been in the areas of clinical and community response to trauma and the impact of deployment and combat injury, illness and death on military service members, their families and their children. He was instrumental in organizing and executing the initial mental health response to the September 11th 2001 attack on the Pentagon. Under his leadership, the Walter Reed Department of Psychiatry spearheaded the initiative to provide mental health services, support and follow up to the many injured service members, their families and their children who receive medical treatment. Dr. Cozza has highlighted the impact of deployment, injury, illness and death on the children and families of military service members. He is published in the scientific literature and has presented on these topics at multiple national and international scientific meetings. Dr. Cozza serves as a scientific advisor to several national organizations that focus on the needs of military children and families.

Profile

Connie C. Duncan, Ph.D., is Research Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, and is Co-Director of the Clinical Psychophysiology and Psychopharmacology Laboratory (CPPL). Dr. Duncan also holds appointments as Guest Researcher in the Section on Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology in the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health and as Adjunct Associate Professor at The Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Duncan received a B.A. in Mathematics and Psychology from Northwestern University and an A.M. and Ph.D. in Clinical and Cognitive Psychology from the University of Illinois. She completed a postdoctoral Fellowship in Neurosciences at Stanford University, and then served as Chief of the Unit on Psychophysiology in the Laboratory of Psychology and Psychopathology in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Duncan was the initial recipient of a Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychophysiology of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. She is a Fellow of three Divisions of the American Psychological Association (Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology, and Clinical Neuropsychology), a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and of the International Organization of Psychophysiology (IOP), and is listed in Who?s Who in America, Who?s Who in Medicine and Health Care, Who?s Who in Science and Engineering, and Who?s Who in Education. She served on the National Institute of Mental Health Clinical Neuroscience Review Committee and as Associate Editor of Psychophysiology. Dr. Duncan was a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and of the Society for Research in Psychopathology, and was Secretary-Treasurer and President of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. Dr. Duncan currently serves as Action Editor of the International Journal of Psychophysiology and as a member of the Scientific Committee for the World Congress of Psychophysiology and of the Committee on Learning Abilities/Disabilities and Attentional Disorders of the IOP. She was a consultant on a National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse Collaborative Project on the Genetics of Alcoholism and currently serves as the consultant on research design and neuropsychology on a Phase I Clinical Trial of atomoxetine in the treatment of cocaine abuse, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The unifying theme of Dr. Duncan's research is normal and disordered attentional processing. She has used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and neuropsychological measures to study attention in healthy individuals and in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by deficits in attention. She has published extensively, primarily on cognitive determinants of electrical brain activity and on electrophysiological and behavioral aspects of neuropsychiatric disorders. Her areas of investigation include the assessment and treatment of schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, eating disorders, mood disorders, idiopathic generalized and focal epilepsy, and closed head injury. Most recently, Dr. Duncan has applied this approach to the study of attentional factors that may contribute to drug abuse vulnerability. She and her colleagues in the CPPL recently completed a study in which they evaluated ERP indices of attention in individuals varying in their response to, and preference for, stimulant drugs. Currently, they are using ERP measures of executive function, most notably those related to inhibition, to evaluate differences among groups of individuals varying on the personality dimension of inhibitory control.

Dr. Duncan's most notable publications include the frequently cited papers on the Stroop effect in Science, on probability effects on P300 in Psychophysiology, and on auditory P300 as a potential trait marker of schizophrenia in Schizophrenia Bulletin. She also contributed chapters on the assessment of attention in adults and in children in the 2004 volume of the Comprehensive handbook of psychological assessment (Humana Press). Most recently, Dr. Duncan published the results of two empirical investigations of survivors of closed head injury (International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2005). Based on a synthesis of her empirical work and that of others, as well as on a consideration of brain anatomy, Dr. Duncan proposed a model of the effects of head injury on brain function. This model proposes that, due to its extra- and intracranial anatomical configuration, the auditory system (and thus auditory information processing) is more vulnerable to injury than the visual system (and visual information processing). Moreover, cognitive processing is more vulnerable to injury than sensory processing, as it demands more integrative resources. Further, an integration of her findings on closed head injury with her work on impaired information processing in neuropsychiatric disorders led to an extension of her model, which she proposed in her Presidential Address to the Society for Psychophysiological Research (Psychophysiology, in press). Dr. Duncan's research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the United States Army, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Profile

Dr. Engel is Assistant Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University and the Director of the Department of Defense (DoD) Deployment Health Clinical Center at Walter Reed in Washington DC.  He was the 1st Cavalry Division Psychiatrist during the 1991 Gulf War and since then has served as a DoD medical advisor of post-war physical and mental health, particularly as it relates to post-war idiopathic physical symptoms, physical health concerns, and the improvement of post-deployment clinical services.

Dr. Engel is a respected psychiatric epidemiologist and health services researcher, evaluating health system strategies for mitigating the chronic health effects of war, terrorist attack, and natural or man-made disasters.  He has nearly 70 scholarly articles, 80 published abstracts, and 90 invited presentations addressing topics such as mental health in primary care, idiopathic physical symptoms, post-war physical and mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical trials, clinical practice guideline development and implementation, and environmental health risk communication in primary care.  Dr. Engel’s research has been funded by National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Aging, Centers for Disease Control, Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Notably, Dr. Engel has served as a principal investigator on three major multicenter clinical trials testing the impact of various health care improvements for military and VA health care beneficiaries.

Dr. Engel is an award winning medical educator as well.  He received the American Psychiatric Association’s 2005 Nancy C.A. Roeske Award for Excellence in Medical Student Education, and in 2003 the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States issued him the William Porter Award for Outstanding Contributions in Psychiatry.  Dr. Engel’s teaching résumé includes eight years directing an annual 55-hour course on psychopathology completed by over 1300 Uniformed Services University medical students.  For the past ten years he has also taught a unique clinical epidemiology course for psychiatrists-in-training called “Evidence-Based Psychiatry.”

Profile

Brian Flynn is a consultant, writer, trainer, and speaker specializing in preparation for, response to, and recovery from, the psychosocial aspects of large-scale emergencies and disasters. He has served numerous national and international organizations, states, and academic institutions.

In addition, he currently serves as Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, in Bethesda, Maryland.

On January 1, 2002, he left federal service as a Rear Admiral/Assistant Surgeon General in the United States Public Health Service (USPHS). He has directly operated, and supervised the operation of, the Federal Government's domestic disaster mental health program (including terrorism), programs in suicide and youth violence prevention, child trauma, refugee mental health, women's and minority mental health concerns, and rural mental health.

He has served as an advisor to many federal departments and agencies, states, and national professional organizations. He is recognized internationally for his expertise in large-scale trauma and has served as an advisor to practitioners, academicians, and government officials in many nations.

He received his B.A. from North Carolina Wesleyan College, his M.A. in Clinical Psychology from East Carolina University, and his Ed.D. in Mental Health Administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Profile

Carol S. Fullerton, Ph.D. is Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences School of Medicine (USUHS), Bethesda, Maryland. She is the Scientific Director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress (CSTS), an interdisciplinary Center with an established an International reputation for research, education and consultation on the effects of terrorism, bioterrorism, trauma, disasters, and war on individuals, communities and groups.

Dr Fullerton was educated at Alfred University, New York, and did her graduate work in Psychology at the University of Maryland. Dr. Fullerton’s research and consultation to disaster populations was recognized by the awarding of the Department of Defense Meritorious Service Medal in 1990, and the USUHS Exceptional Service Medal in 1993. Dr. Fullerton is the 2005 recipient of the James Leonard Award for Excellence in Clinical Research, USUHS. Dr. Fullerton’s research on the acute and long term effects of trauma exposure on disaster workers was selected as the feature article for the August 2004 volume of one of the most prestigious journals in psychiatry, the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Dr. Fullerton and her group established the Military and Disaster Psychiatry Fellowship, an International program to train psychiatrists and other mental health providers. Under her leadership the Department of Psychiatry also established the Clinical Scientist Training Program in Disaster Psychiatry at USUHS.

Dr. Fullerton is widely published in the areas of post-traumatic stress disorder and the behavioral and psychological effects of terrorism, bioterrorism, traumatic events and disasters, and combat. Dr. Fullerton has over 100 publications. She is editor or co-author on 5 books: Bioterrorism: Psychological and Public Health Interventions (Cambridge University Press, 2004); Terrorism and Disaster: Individual and Community Mental Health Interventions (Cambridge University Press, 2003); Mental Health and Mass Violence: Evidence Based Early Psychological Intervention for Victims/Survivors of Mass Violence (National Institute of Health Publication No. 02-5138, 2002); Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Acute and Chronic (American Psychiatric Association Press, 1997); and Individual and Community Responses to Trauma and Disaster: The Structure of Human Chaos (Cambridge University Press, 1994). Dr. Fullerton’s articles are frequently cited because of the contributions to developing response capabilities to terrorism, bioterrorism, disaster, and war.

Dr. Fullerton Co-directed two International conferences that resulted in two published monographs that were widely circulated in congress and served as the basis for congressional recommendations for the nation’s security: Planning for Bioterrorism: Behavior & Mental Health Responses to Weapons of Mass Weapons of Mass Destruction & Mass Disruption (DTIC: 142, 2000); and Responses to Terrorism & Infectious Disease Outbreaks: Planning for Biological Events (2001).

Dr. Fullerton has conducted empirical investigations and provided consultation to the following disaster and traumatic events: Ramstein Air Force Base air show crash; Norton Air Force Base cargo plane crash; USS Iowa gun turret explosion; United Flight 232 DC-10 crash, Sioux City, Iowa; Armenian earthquake; Operation Desert Storm; the USNS Comfort Desert Storm deployments; Typhoon Ohmar; Hurricane Andrew; dentists following Waco disaster; 9/11 Pentagon personnel; USNS Comfort 9/11 deployment; DC Sniper attacks; motor vehicle accidents; effect of terrorism on State Department Officers and families; the effects of the 2004 Florida hurricanes on the FL Department of Health; and the 2004 South East Asia Tsunami.

Dr. Fullerton and her group are at the forefront of public health policy planning for terrorism, and bioterrorism. Her work has been widely cited in government planning and Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Sciences reports addressing these issues. She was a national consultant for planning research programs following the September 11th terrorist attacks. Dr. Fullerton and her group developed educational materials that were some of the most widely disseminated throughout the nation to assist populations exposed to the September 11th attacks.

Dr. Fullerton’s research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the United States Army, the United States Air Force, CDC, SAMSHA, NIOSH and other national foundations and agencies.

Profile

Frances H. Gabbay, Ph.D., is Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and of Medical and Clinical Psychology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, and Co-Director of the Clinical Psychophysiology and Psychopharmacology Laboratory (CPPL) in the Department of Psychiatry.  She also holds an appointment as Guest Researcher in the Section on Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology in the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Gabbay received a B.S. in Psychology and Sociology and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Indiana University.  She was a Traveling Scholar of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and a Fellow in Behavioral Genetics in the Departments of Genetics and Psychology at the University of Minnesota.  After receiving her Ph.D., she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychopharmacology at the University of Minnesota, and held faculty positions in the Department of Genetics and Cell Biology at the University of Minnesota and in the Department of Mental Hygiene at The Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Gabbay received a New Investigator Award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to begin her research program on risk for drug abuse.  Her approach is guided by the view that, to identify genetic loci relevant to drug abuse disorders, and to elucidate environmental contributors, it is necessary to define phenotypes that are more elemental than the manifest symptoms of those disorders.  Dr. Gabbay and her colleagues in the CPPL consider executive control as a set of component processes—including attention and inhibition—subserved by distinct neural substrates and indexed by specific components of the event-related brain potential (ERP).  Insofar as these different ERP components distinguish among groups at varying risk for drug abuse, they may comprise elemental phenotypes for drug abuse.  In a recently completed a study, Dr. Gabbay and her coworkers found that ERP indices of attention, recorded after placebo and after amphetamine, distinguish healthy young adults who selected amphetamine vs. placebo in a behavioral preference procedure.  Most recently, Dr. Gabbay and her colleagues in the CPPL were awarded a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to investigate ERP measures of inhibitory control that may mediate the phenotypic relationship between drug abuse and personality measures of disinhibition.  In addition, Dr. Gabbay has studied the subjective effects of stimulant drugs: On the basis of her findings, she proposed that heightened sensitivity to these effects may comprise an endophenotype for drug and alcohol abuse (Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2005).  Dr. Gabbay has served as Principal Investigator on three grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as well as on grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the United States Army, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In addition to her program of research on risk factors for drug abuse, Dr. Gabbay participated in a McDonnell Foundation Symposium on Emotion as an expert on the role of genetic factors in emotion.  This effort culminated in a review paper, published in Psychological Science.  She also participated in an important departmental effort funded by the Defense Women’s Health Research Program.  Dr. Gabbay’s contribution comprised an evaluation of the effects on military readiness of sex differences in exposure and response to stress, an effort that included an edited volume entitled Sex differences, stress, and military readiness.  Dr. Gabbay contributed three chapters to this volume, including an overview, entitled, “Beyond the mythology: A constructive approach to sex differences and military readiness.”  In this chapter, Dr. Gabbay and her co-authors proposed a productive approach to the interpretation of sex differences, with the goal of maintaining a force that effectively utilizes women and men.

Dr. Gabbay is active in the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR), currently serving on the Board of Directors and as representative to the Psychology and Neuroscience sections of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  In 2001, she served as Scientific Program Chair for the annual meeting of SPR.  In addition, Dr. Gabbay is a member of the Behavior Genetics Association and the Research Society on Alcoholism, and has presented her work at the annual meetings of these societies as well as those of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.  Dr. Gabbay has served on two National Institute on Drug Abuse Special Emphasis Panels and was Associate Editor for Psychophysiology.  She also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous journals representing the broadly diverse fields of psychophysiology, drug and alcohol abuse, and genetics.

Profile

Robert K. Gifford, Ph.D., is the Director of Homeland Security Studies in the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS); specializing in the study of traumatic stress in the workplace, particularly combat stress, operational stress, accidents, and the aftermath of workplace incidents. His advanced degrees include Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Philosophy degrees, both in psychology, from Yale University, and a Master of Science in clinical psychology from Saint Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas.

Dr. Gifford served in the United States Army for thirty years, retiring as a colonel. While in the Army, he conducted psychological research in the field during operations in Panama, the Persian Gulf War (Operation Desert Shield/Storm), in Somalia, and in Bosnia, as well as at sites in Germany and the United States during peacetime. His research on soldiers' stress and coping during operational deployments and his studies of grief leadership were used by the Army leadership to develop personnel policies for improving support of soldiers in the field. His other military assignments included serving as Director of Admissions for the USUHS School of Medicine: Chief of the Staff and Faculty Development Division at the Army Academy of Health Sciences at Fort Sam Houston, Texas; Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Unit - Europe, in Heidelberg, Germany, Director of the Military Operational Medicine Research Program for the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, Chief of the Department of Military Psychiatry at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and Executive Officer of the WRAIR. He also served as Research Psychology Consultant to The Army Surgeon General and later as the Army Medical Service Corps' Assistant Chief for Medical Allied Sciences.

His military honors include three awards of the Legion of Merit, two awards of the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, three awards of the Meritorious Service Medal, three awards of the Army Commendation Medal, the Joint Services Achievement Medal, and various other campaign and service ribbons and awards, including shoulder sleeve insignia for the 10th Mountain Division and for Third U.S. Army, both awarded for combat zone service. He is a member of the Order of Military Medical Merit, and holds the Army Medical Department "A" Proficiency Designator.

Dr. Gifford's research interests include community shielding; creating resiliency in organizations; the role of group, organizational, and community factors in preparing for disaster or traumatic loss and in facilitating a return to normal function after such events; and grief leadership - the effect of leaders' behavior and communication on group recovery. He has extensive experience with both interview research at multiple levels within organizations, and survey questionnaires for larger populations. He has also been active in education about traumatic stress and developing resiliency in organizations and individuals, having lectured on the topic both in the United States and in Europe.

Profile

Harry C. Holloway, a 1958 graduate of the University of Oklahoma School ofMedicine, spent 30 years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. During this time,he was Chief of Neuropsychiatry at SEATO Medical Research Laboratory in Bangkok,Thailand; Director of Neuropsychiatry at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Uniformed Services Universityof the Health Sciences (USUHS). He remained Psychiatry Chairman until 1990when he became Deputy Dean and Acting Dean of the School of Medicine at USUHS. From August of 1992 until March of 1993 he served as Deputy Dean. Dr. Hollowaywas awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Military Medicine by USUHS in1992. He has received the Legion of Merit and Defense Superior Service Medal.

Dr. Holloway has been a student of the impact of extreme environments onhuman adaptation throughout his career. During the 1970's, he was responsiblefor research on substance abuse and the development of programs to preventdrug abuse and alcoholism in armed forces' personnel. In the clinical area,he has developed programs to facilitate the care of patients and individuals infected with the human immunodeficiency (AIDS) virus.

Dr. Holloway has served as Chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aerospace Medicine Advisory Committee. As a memberof NASAÿs US/USSR Joint Working Group on Space Biology and Medicine,he served as one the organizers of the Telemedicine Spacebridge in which American physicians offered advice to Armenian doctors following their 1988earthquake. He has served as consultant to the World Health Organizationon refugee problems in the former Yugoslavia and has twice been on site in the region.

Dr. Holloway served as the first Associate Administrator for the Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications at NASA from 1993 to 1996 and as Co-Director of the NASA Enterprise for the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS). He participated in the development of the first NASA Strategic Plan and in the development of the HEDS Strategic Plan that guides the programmatic development in the Office of Space Flight and Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications. His office was responsible for the planning and support of experimental scientific activities on orbit for biotechnology (including protein crystallography), biology, biomedicine, fluid physics and combustion and material sciences as well as all occupational and aerospace medicine. During his tenure, his office supported the integration of thirteen shuttle missions (including the first missions to Mir) and the development of the science facilities for the International Space Station. He has received three decorations from NASA: the NASA Medals for Leadership, Distinguished Public Service, and Distinguished Service.

Dr. Holloway is presently at the F. Edward Hébert School of where he serves as Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Neuroscience and Assistant Chairman for Research in the Department of Psychiatry. He currently serves on the Gulf War Illness Advisory Committee of the Veterans Administration. Dr. Holloway is the author of over forty publications. He is Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and has received the APA's Distinguished Psychiatrist Award.

Profile

Dr. Howe received his undergraduate degree at Yale and his M.D. at Columbia. He completed an internship at Harlem Hospital and his residency in Psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He received his law degree at Catholic University. Dr. Howe joined the USUHS faculty in 1977 and is a Professor in the Department of the Psychiatry and Director of Program in Medical Ethics. His research has focused on medical ethics with an emphasis on ethics in military medicine and clinical care at the end of life.

Dr. Howeÿs professional contributions center around his interest in ethics. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Clinical Ethics and serves as a member of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Naval Medical Center, and Malcolm Grow U.S. Air Force Medical Center Ethics Committees, as well as the Ethics Committees at Montgomery Hospice, the Visiting Nurse Association, Springfield Psychiatric Hospital, the V.A. Hospital of Washington, DC, and the National Institutes of Health. He is Chair of the Committee of Ethics Consultants to the Surgeons General, the Human Use Institutional Review Board, USUHS, and the Ethics Subcommittee, Society of Medical Consultants to the Armed Forces.

Profile

The Johnson Lab in the department of Psychiatry and interdepartmental Neuroscience program seeks to address fundamental questions in the neurobiology of fear memory with the aim of providing vital basic knowledge into the way the brain encodes normal and pathological fear memories.

Normal fear memory and fear responses are an essential part of any persons or animals survival mechanism. Using fear memory an organism can learn to associate and remember new threats with physical danger. Fear pathology includes the anxiety disorders and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Anxiety and PTSD can be characterized by pathology in fear memory where responses are amplified and become debilitating. These disorders can thus be thought of as either pathology of the acquisition of fear memory or as pathology in the expression of an otherwise normal fear memory.

Knowledge of where and how the brain processes fear and fear learning has greatly increased in the last few decades driven by the work of LeDoux, Davis, Pare, Fanslow, Phelps, Maren and many others. This research has identified neural circuits that mediate synaptic plasticity at input synapses to the lateral amygdala (LA). However, knowledge of the cellular encoding of fear memory within the LA network is crucially lacking. The Johnson Lab seeks to quantify the neural circuits of the LA and also the organization of fear memories encoded by groups of LA neurons. The lab has coined this approach the study of the Micro Anatomy of Fear.

In addition the Johnson Lab also seeks to directly understand the microanatomy of how stress interacts with the fear system. One of the key mechanisms of the stress response is regulation of the HPA axis including modulation of adrenal steroids. The Johnson lab also investigates the microanatomy of glucorticoid receptors and their regulation of LA network behavior.

The Johnson lab studies the microanatomy of fear using Pavlovian Fear Conditioning as a principal behavioral model. Brains subject to Pavlovian conditioning are studied using 3-dimensional reconstruction of LA neural networks. 3D mapping is performed using computerized mapping with Neurolucida (Microbrightfield, VT). Anatomical and electrophysiological data is obtained from neurons and networks using immunocytochemistry and whole cell patch clamp and extra cellular field recordings. Structural data is obtained using transmitted light, fluorescent and electron microscopy.

Profile

Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Program

The ultimate goal of my research is to acquire and provide the knowledge that is necessary for the development of novel and effective molecular and pharmacological means that will prevent or treat stress-related affective disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many lines of evidence have suggested a central role of the amygdala in stress-related emotional illnesses and PTSD. In fear conditioning (an experimental paradigm that is similar to PTSD and other anxiety disorders), the amygdala appears to be the site of emotional memory storage. The amygdala also plays a
very important role in modulating the consolidation on emotional memory. In PTSD patients, the amygdala displays hypertrophy and hyperexcitability. For these reasons, my research program has been centered in the amygdala cellular neurobiology. My objectives are as follows:

• To understand the neuronal physiology and mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in the amygdala.  Included in this objective is the identification of the role of neuromodulators that are known to affect emotional behavior and affective disorders.
• To determine how amygdala physiology and plasticity are altered following exposure to a stressor that mimics traumatic stressors that result in PTSD.  The accomplishment of this objective requires the use of an appropriate animal model. The inescapable tail-shock paradigm in rats that I have developed in my laboratory has been shown to induce elevated basal corticosterone levels, weight loss, deficits in escape/avoidance learning and an exaggerated startle response, all of which have been observed in PTSD patients.
• To develop pharmacological interventions that will prevent or treat stress-induced pathophysiological alterations of the amygdala.  To date, my research group has made significant strides in the accomplishment of these objectives. There is significant potential
  for the development of improved strategies for the prevention and/or treatment of PTSD based on the research carried out in my laboratory.

Recent Publications

1. Post, R.M., Weiss, S.R., Smith, M., Li, H. & McCann, U.: Kindling versus quenching: Implications for the evolution and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 821:285-295, 1997.

2.     Post, R.M., Weiss, S.R.B., Li, H., Smith, M.A., Zhang, L.X., Xing, G., Osuch, E.A. & McCann, U.D.: Neural plasticity and emotional memory. Development and Psychopathology, 10: 829-855, 1998.

3.     Li, H. & Henry, J.L.: Adenosine A2 receptor mediation of pre- and postsynaptic excitatory effects of adenosine in hippocampus in vitro. European Journal of Pharmacology, 347(2-3): 173-182, 1998.

4.    Li, H. & Rogawski, M.A.: GluR5 mediated synaptic transmission in basolateral amygdala in vitro. Neuropharmacology, 37: 1279-1286, 1998.

5.    Li, H., Weiss, S.R.B., Chuang, D-M., Post, R.M. & Rogawski, M.A.: Bidirectional synaptic plasticity in the rat basolateral amygdala: characterization of an activity-dependent switch sensitive to the presynaptic metabotropic glutamate receptor antagonist 2S-α-Ethylglutamic acid. The Journal of Neuroscience, 18(5): 1662-1670, 1998.

6.        Post, R.M., Weiss, S.R.B., Li, H., Leverich, G.S. and Pert, A.: Sensitization components of post-traumatic stress disorder: implications for therapeutics. Seminars in clinical neuropsychiatry, 1999 Oct;4(4):282-94. Review.

7.        Post, R.M., Speer, A., Weiss, S. and Li, H.:  Seizure Models: Anticonvulsant effects of ECT and rTMS.   Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 2000 Nov;24(8):1251-73.  Review.

8.        Post, R.M., Weiss, R.B., Clark,M., Chuang, De-maw, Hough, Christopher and

Li, H.: Lithium, Carbamazepine, and Valproate in Affective Illness: Biochemical and Neurobiological Mechanisms. Biopolar Medications, Mechanisms of Action. Chapter 10, 219-248, 1999.

9.        Weiss, S.R.B., Li, H., Sitcoske-OShea, M. and Post, R.M.: Amygdala plasticity: the neurobiological implications of kindling. The Amygdala, second edition, Oxford University, chapter 4, 155- 194, 2000.

10.       Li, H. and Henry, J.L.: Inhibitory effects of adenosine on interneuron and interneuronal synaptic  transmission in rat hippocampus in vitro. European Journal of Pharmacology, 407(3): 237-44. 2000.

11.     Li, H. and Henry, J.L.: Adenosine receptor blockade reveals NMDA receptor- and voltage-sensitive dendritic spikes in rat hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells in vitro. Neuroscience, 100(1): 21-31, 2000.

12.     Rogawski, M., Hurzman, P., Yamaguchi, S. and Li, H.: Role of AMPA and GluR5 kainate receptors in the development and expression of amygdala kindling in the mouse. Neuropharmacology, 40(1): 28 35, 2001.

13.     Aroniadou-Anderjaska, V., Post, R. M., Rogawski, M. A. and Li, H.: Input-specific LTP and depotentiation in basolateral amygdala.  NeuroReport 12: 635-640, 2001.

14.    Li, H., Chen, A., Xing, G., Wei, M. and Rogawski, M.A.: Kainate Receptor Mediated Heterosynaptic     Facilitation in the Amygdala. Nature Neuroscience, 4(6): 612-620, 2001.

15.      Braga, M.F.M., Aroniadou-Anderjaska, V., Post, R.M. and Li, H.: Lamotrigine reduces spontaneous and evoked GABAA receptor-mediated synaptic transmission in the basolateral amygdala: Implications for  its effects in seizure- and affective disorders. Neuropharmacology, 42:522-529, 2002.

16.    Rogawski, M.A., Gryder, D., Castanada, D. Yonekawa, W. and Li, H.: Kainate receptor mediated long-  term plasticity, seizures and epileptogenesis in the amygdala. New York Academy of Sciences, 985, 150-162, 2003.

17.    Braga, M. F., Aroniadou-Anderjaska, V., Xie, J, and Li, H. Bidirectional modulation of GABA release by presynaptic glutamate 5 kaiante receptors in the basolateral amygdala. Journal of Neuroscience. 23(1), 442-452. 2003.

18.       Chen, A., Hough, C.J. and Li, H. 5-HT2 Receptor activation facilitates synaptic plasticity via NMDA-Mediated mechanism in the basolateral amygdala. Neuroscience, 119, 53-63, 2003.

19.     Braga, M. F., Aroniadou-Anderjaska, V., Manion, S.T., Hough, C.J., and Li, H.  Stress impairs 1Adrenoceptor-mediated noradrenergic facilitation of GABAergic transmission in the basolateral amygdala.  Neuropsychopharmacology. 29,45- 58, 2004

20.      Braga, M., Aroniadou-Anderjaska, V. and Li, H. : The physiological role of GluR5 kainate     receptors in   neuronal excitability and neuroplasticity in the rat amygdala. An invited review paper for Molecular  Neurobiology 30(2):127-141, 2004

21.     Osuch E, Ursano R, Li H, Webster M, Hough C, Fullerton C, Leskin G. Brain environment interactions: stress, posttraumatic stress disorder, and the need for a postmortem brain collection. Psychiatry. 2004 Winter;67(4):353-83.    

22.       Zhang, ZJ, Jiang XL, Zhang SE, Hough, CJ, Li, H., Chen, JG, Zhen, XCh: The paradoxical  effects of SKF83959, a novel dopamine D1-like receptor agonist, in the rat acoustic reflex paradigm. Neuroscience Letters (382:134-138. 2005)

23.         Jiang, X.L., Chen A.Q. and Li, H.: Histaminergic Modulation of Excitatory Synaptic Transmission in the Rat Basolateral Amygdala. Neuroscience (131(3), 609: 2005)

24.         Zhang, L., Zhou, R., Xing, G., Hough, C.J. Li, H.: Identification of gene markers based on well validated and subcategorized stressed animals for potential clinical  applications in PTSD. Medical Hypotheses. In press, 2006 

25.          Zhang, L., Zhou, R., Li, X.X., Li, H.: Stress-induced change of mitochondria membrane potential regulated by genomic and nongenomic GR signaling: a possible mechanism for hippocampus atrophy in PTSD Medical Hypotheses, In press, 2006

Profile

Richard M. MacDonald, M.D. graduated from the Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina in 1962. He attended the College of Charleston for post baccalaureate study and then entered and graduated from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1967. During his college years, Dr. MacDonald participated in the United State Air Force ROTC but was later commissioned in the U.S. Army Reserve during medical school. Subsequently, Dr. MacDonald completed an Internal Medicine Internship at the Northwestern University Memorial Medical Center-Passavant Memorial Hospital in 1968, and entered active duty as a Captain in the U.S. Army in the role of Resident in Psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center later that same year.

Dr. MacDonald's active duty military medical career lasted 22 years until he retired in December, 1989 with the rank of Colonel following two below-the-zone promotions. During his active duty career, he completed his general psychiatry training and was selected by the Surgeon General for fellowship training in adolescent psychiatry at the Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health. He subsequently served several clinical and administrative assignments that included four assignments as Consultant at the Office of the Surgeon General or Headquarters, 7th Medical Command (Europe) in the professional areas of Psychiatry, Neurology and Substance Abuse. He was selected as the third Student Affairs' Dean at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine in May of 1983 while still serving on active duty. After military retirement, Dr. MacDonald has remained at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in the same position.

Dr. MacDonald holds several awards that include the Legion of Merit, four Meritorious Service Medals, the USUHS Outstanding Civilian Educator Award, the American Psychiatric Association's Nancy C.A. Roeske Award of Excellence for Outstanding and Sustained Contributions to Medical Education and the silver medal of recognition from Poland's Wojskowa Akademia Medyczna. Dr MacDonald's professional interests include organizational development, system and group process, and personal growth and development.

Profile

Ph.D., M.P.H.

Dr. McCarroll received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Arkansas in 1970 and his M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1978. He completed a U.S. Army internship in clinical/counseling psychology at Silas B. Hays Hospital, Fort Ord, California, 1978-79. From 1979 to 1982 he was the Chief of Mental Health at the U.S. Army Hospital, Berlin. He was the Assistant Chief of Psychology at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 1982 to 1988. In 1988, he joined the staff of the Department of Military Psychiatry, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research where he was Deputy Chief for Administration and also conducted a research program in the psychiatric effects of traumas and disasters with the Trauma Research Team in the Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He retired from the Army in 1995 and joined the staff of this Department. He was the first author on over 25 original journal articles in the field of military medicine and the psychological effects of exposure to traumatic events. He has made over 30 presentations at scientific meetings. In addition, he has written book chapters, contributed to monographs, and made videotapes on these subjects.

Profile

Research Assistant Professor

Dr. Naifeh is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and a Scientist in the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress. Dr. Naifeh received his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his Ph.D. in clinical and disaster psychology from the University of South Dakota. He completed a clinical internship at the VA Maryland Health Care System/University of Maryland Psychology Consortium, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Dr. Naifeh's research interests include methodological issues in the assessment of psychological trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), use of latent variable modeling techniques in understanding posttraumatic sequelae, and identification of mechanisms underlying trauma-related emotion dysregulation and the co-occurrence of PTSD and various health risk behaviors. Clinically, Dr. Naifeh has expertise in cognitive-behavioral treatments for anxiety and mood disorders. He has experience conducting empirically supported individual and group-based interventions with military veterans and civilians.

Profile

Assistant Professor (FAM)- Associate Professor (PSY)

Dr. Privitera received his A.B. degree from the University of Rochester and his M.D. from Northwestern University Medical School. He completed a rotating internship at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida before entering the U.S. Army and completing a General Psychiatry Residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 1970. He also completed fellowships in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Family Therapy.

Dr. Privitera has served as Chief, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center; Chief of Outpatient and Inpatient Psychiatry, and Director, Psychiatric Education and Research at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and as Chief, Community Mental Health Service at Fort Meade. In addition, Dr. Privitera was the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences from 1979 to 1983. Dr. Privitera retired from the U.S. Army and has been Director of the University Counseling Service since 1990.

Dr. Privitera has been co-director of the USUHS second year Human Behavior Course from 1990 to 2004, as co-director of the National Capital Area Psychiatric Residency Training in Couples and Family Therapy from 1977 to present. Since 2008 to present, he has served as Senior Consultant to the NCC Psychiatric Residency Program.

Profile

Patcho Santiago, M.D., M.P.H., is a board certified psychiatrist and Assistant Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Dr. Santiago graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. He earned his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College under the Navy's Health Professions Scholarship Program and completed his psychiatry residency at the Naval Medical Center San Diego. His first assignment was at Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton, California, where he served as a staff psychiatrist. From there, he deployed to the Expeditionary Medical Facility at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He then completed a Disaster and Preventive Psychiatry Fellowship at USUHS, earning his Masters in Public Health and ultimately joining the faculty at the university, having research interests in psychiatric epidemiology and mental health promotion. From the university, he deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom as the Officer-in-Charge of the Navy Mobile Care Team, based out of Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. Dr. Santiago is the USUHS program manager for the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Service members (Army STARRS) as well as the associate program director for the Disaster and Preventive Psychiatry Fellowship.

Profile

John A. Stuart is Director, Information Systems for the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress and serves as Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda Maryland. He has served in these positions since 2000. Prior to year 2000, he served 21 years in the U.S. Army as a Research Psychologist with assignments at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, Ft. Detrick, Maryland, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington DC, and U.S. Army Academy of Health Sciences, San Antonio, Texas. He received both Bachelors, Masters from the University of Texas and Ph.D. from New Mexico State University in 1980. Academic background includes majors/minors in Educational Psychology, Research and Biology.

As the Center Director for Information Systems, he is charged with acquisition and maintenance of computer related hardware, software, accessories or any device which promotes knowledge, data processing and retrieval. This includes the Center’s large literature database and extensive research datasets. A staff that includes a Computer Scientist and Research Assistants complete the Center’s Information Systems Team.

Dr. Stuart has published on a variety of stress related research topics covering recent military deployments, stress indicies and measures, and reports in belief to toxic exposures.

Brain Abnormalities in Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder and Severe Depression

Dr. Torrey is Co-Director (with Dr. Maree Webster) of the Stanley Brain Research Laboratory in Gaithersburg, MD. This laboratory is the repository of one of the largest brain collections in the world, now numbering over 600 specimens, for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression along with normal control brains. In addition to being used for ongoing research projects in this laboratory, over 200,000 sections and blocks of tissue from this collection have been provided without charge to other research laboratories worldwide.

Research projects underway in this laboratory include studies of viruses and other infectious agents and neuroimmunological markers in these diseases. These include studies of retroviruses, herpesviruses and toxoplasma as well as studies of various cytokines. Some of these studies are done in collaboration with the Stanley Laboratory of Developmental Neurovirology at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore, MD.

Profile

Director, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress
Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Chair Department of Psychiatry

Robert J. Ursano, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland. He is founding Director of the internationally recognized Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress which has more than $20 million dollars in research funding. In addition, Dr. Ursano is Editor of Psychiatry, the distinguished journal of interpersonal and biological processes, founded by Harry Stack Sullivan. Dr Ursano completed twenty years service in USAF medical corps and retired as Colonel in 1991.

Dr. Ursano was educated at the University of Notre Dame and Yale University School of Medicine and did his psychiatric training at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center and Yale University. Dr. Ursano graduated from the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute in 1986 and is a member of the teaching faculty of the Institute. Dr. Ursano served as the Department of Defense representative to the National Advisory Mental Health Council of the National Institute of Mental Health and is a past member of the Veterans Affairs Mental Health Study Section and the National Institute of Mental Health Rapid Trauma and Disaster Grant Review Section. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow in the American Psychiatric Association. He is a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, and of the American College of Psychoanalysts and is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in Medicine and Health Care.

Dr. Ursano was the first Chairman of the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster. Through his work with the Committee, the American Psychiatric Association established a collaborative relationship with the Red Cross, the Bruno Lima Award, to recognize contributors to psychiatric care in times of disaster, and the Eric Lindemann Grant to support disaster services. This work greatly aided the integration of psychiatry and public health in times of disaster and terrorism.

His continued service and leadership in committee activities has been instrumental to the development of the APA's disaster psychiatry training program, and to the development and widespread international dissemination of psychosocial support training for emergency responders after the December, 2007 Southeast Asian Tsunami and in the immediate and extended aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His Center's training and post-disaster health surveillance materials are currently being translated into Chinese to assist in the psychosocial response to recent earthquake victims.

Dr. Ursano was an invited participant to the White House Mental Health Conference in 1999. He has received the Department of Defense Humanitarian Service Award and the highest award of the International Traumatic Stress Society, The Lifetime Achievement Award, for "outstanding and fundamental contributions to understanding traumatic stress." He is the recipient of the William C. Porter Award from the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, and a frequent advisor on issues surrounding psychological response to trauma to the highest levels of the US Government and specifically to the Department of Defense leadership. As a result of his widely recognized leadership in trauma and disaster preparedness and response, his was one of the first Centers recognized as a partnering center with the newly established Department of Defense National Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.

Dr. Ursano has served as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Partnership for Workplace Mental Health (American Psychiatric Association); the White Paper Panel on Bioterrorism and Health Care, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations; the Scientific Advisory Board on Bioterrorism of SAMSHA (HHS), Center for Mental Health Services; the Advisory Board of the Center on Terrorism of the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine; the National Academies of Science, Institute of Medicine, Committee on Psychological Responses to Terrorism, Committee on PTSD and Compensation and the Committee on Nuclear Preparedness; and the National Institute of Mental Health Task Force on Mental Health Surveillance After Terrorist Attack. In addition he is a member of scientific advisory boards to the for HHS and the CDC.

Dr. Ursano has over 300 publications. He is co-author or editor of seven books. His publications include the internationally recognized volume Individual and Community Responses to Trauma and Disaster: The Structure of Human Chaos. (Cambridge University Press.) His 2007 Textbook of Disaster Psychiatry (Cambridge University Press) is the most comprehensive treatment of the subject to date. His books on psychotherapy have been translated and published in Russia, Turkey, China and Japan.

He is widely published in the areas of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the psychological effects of terrorism, bioterrorism, traumatic events and disasters and combat. He and his team have served as consultants and completed studies on numerous disasters, disaster rescue workers, motor vehicle accident victims, family violence, and Viet Nam, Desert Storm and Gulf War veterans. His research group completed the follow-up studies of the USAF Vietnam era prisoners of war, identifying the critical role of degree of exposure to outcome, resiliency, and the development of psychiatric disease in those with no known risk factors. He was part of the design of the repatriation of the Desert Storm prisoners of war. His work on disaster first responders is noted for the focus on public health needs. His group has studied the psychiatric responses of individuals to disasters and to small-scale traumatic events including motor vehicle collisions in order to better understand the human trauma response and its mechanisms of disease and recovery. His group was the first to identify increased rates of child neglect during the Iraq war deployments.

Dr. Ursano was instrumental in the efforts of a group of twenty of the world's most renowned experts in disaster mental health in an exhaustive review of the empirical evidence surrounding psychosocial intervention after disaster. This workgroup recently published "Five Essential Elements of Immediate and Mid-Term Mass Trauma Intervention: Empirical Evidence." This visionary multi-disciplinary effort synthesizes the wealth of international disaster mental health/public health intervention experience and study into basic principles which will inform subsequent development of disaster preparedness and response at the community, state, national, and international levels for the foreseeable future.

Dr. Ursano has provided input and leadership into the development and dissemination of clinical best practices for the treatment of Acute Stress Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. He chaired the American Psychiatric Association?s task force on Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Acute Stress Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This led to 2004 publication of the most comprehensive review and synthesis of the evidence basis for pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatment of these disorders in the first edition of American Psychiatric Association?s Practice Guideline for the treatment of these illnesses. He has subsequently served in leadership positions on Institute of Medicine committees and task forces requested to develop policy guidance for disability evaluations related to PTSD and to review and synthesize treatment evidence developed since the publication of the APA guidelines.

Dr. Ursano and his group are at the forefront of public health policy planning for terrorism, and bioterrorism in particular and for the effects of war and deployment on military members and their families. Their work has been widely cited in government planning and Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Sciences reports addressing these issues. He was a national consultant for planning clinical care responses and research programs following the September 11th terrorist attacks, providing consultation to New York State Governor's Office, New York City Mayor's Office, Department of HHS, National Capital response teams and the Department of Defense Pentagon response groups. His group developed educational materials that were some of the most widely disseminated throughout the nation to assist populations exposed to the September 11 attack. Dr Ursano is on the Natonal Bioscience Advisory Board subcommittee for Mental Health to advise the Secretary of Health and Human Services on needs for mental health in disaster. Dr Ursano is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advising the director on preparedness and response for terrorism.

In addition to cutting edge public health policy and disaster response planning, Dr. Ursano continues to spearhead major advances in understanding the neurobiological processes of traumatic stress response. His efforts have led to the development of a first of its kind collaborative endeavor with Academic Centers including Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Washington, various Veteran?s Affairs Hospitals and the VA's National Center for PTSD to identify, collect, process, and distribute neural tissue for pathological, microcellular, and genetic studies of PTSD. Stemming from this ongoing collaboration Dr. Ursano and colleagues recently reported their identification of a potential genetic biomarker for PTSD, p11. This critical pioneering report of pilot data is the first of its kind in the scientific literature, and will certainly promote and inspire further research in this direction.

Dr. Ursano's research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, SAMSHA, CDC, NIOSH, the Sloan Foundation, the United States Army, the United States Air Force, and other national foundations and agencies.

Neuropathology of severe mental illness

Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder are two major psychotic disorders effecting approximately 3% of the world population. They both have a peak onset in late adolescence and early adulthood. Human genetic and epidemiological studies have shown that the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may involve many chromosomal loci and environmental influences. Neurodevelopmental abnormalities combined with environmental triggers may also contribute to the expression and manifestation of the symptoms.

The Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI) Laboratory of Brain Research, directed by Maree Webster, is a repository of over 600 brain specimens from subjects with schizophrenia, affective disorders and unaffected controls. Dr. Webster oversees the collection, storage, processing and distribution of the samples to research laboratories around the world. Researchers send data collected from the specimens back to a central database at SMRI. Many of the studies conducted in the laboratory are designed to replicate and verify important novel results that are submitted to SMRI. In addition, Dr Webster undertakes studies that focus on the molecular mechanisms controlling normal brain development, with the possibility that these mechanisms may be disrupted in severe mental illness. Using RT-PCR, in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry and western blotting techniques the studies are designed to detect abnormalities in the expression and regulation of neurotrophic and transcription factors in both neurons and glia of subjects with severe mental illness. In conjunction to these studies she also investigates the expression of neurotrophins, transcription factors, hormones and receptors during the development of the normal human and nonhuman primate brain. This data will provide a better understanding of the periods when the developing brain is most vulnerable to environmental stimuli, such as viruses, that could impact the developing system and lead to the neural abnormalities that result in severe mental illness.