Asher Center for the Study and Treatment of Depressive Disorders

The primary mission of the Asher Center, www.medschool.northwestern.edu/asher-center/index.html, is to provide a multidisciplinary research infrastructure in which basic and clinical faculty scientists in the field of depressive disorders can develop integrative and cutting-edge approaches to the study and treatment of depressive disorders. The Asher Center currently houses a team of six basic scientists, eight clinical psychiatrists, and core administrative personnel committed to its mission. The central research themes include animal models of depression, exploration and development of neurobiological substrates of depressive disorders, and neurobiological developmental perspectives of depression.

The Asher Center collaborates with a variety of other research programs and centers at Northwestern. These include Northwestern's Center for Circadian Biology and Medicine, the Feinberg Clinical Neuroscience Institute, Center for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology, Drug Discovery Program, and Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience. The Asher Center also has an extensive educational mission and sponsors a variety of community programs, visiting lecture series, and grand rounds. Asher Center faculty members combined have published more than 50 publications in the past two years.

All clinical and basic science research at CMH is under the auspices of the Children’s Memorial Research Center (CMRC), www.childrensmrc.org. Funded research in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) at CMH includes family management of childhood diabetes, improving medication use for ADHD in primary care, quality of life after pediatric stem cell transplant, and efficacy and safety of risperidone in childhood schizophrenia. Other projects focus on measuring outcomes of outpatient psychiatric care, psychological functioning and medication adherence in adolescents with HIV, psychopathology in children with epilepsy, neurobehavioral functioning following liver transplantation, the relationship between asthma and mental health, depressive symptoms in cyclic vomiting syndrome, and neurocognitive aspects of a variety of pediatric disorders. The Department of CAP is an active participant in CRIB (Children’s Research on Injury to the Brain), a CMRC consortium to promote interdisciplinary and translational clinical and basic science research in the prevention, treatment, and understanding of pediatric brain injuries and outcomes, most broadly defined.

CMH houses the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Office of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CORE), www.enh.org/research, based in the Department of Psychiatry at Evanston Hospital, focuses on research on outcomes and effectiveness of various medical and psychiatric treatment strategies that affect quality of life. With academic ties to Northwestern University's Institute for Healthcare Studies (IHS) and a staff of 32, CORE aims to become a national leader in the application of outcomes management and research to improve patient care.

A number of department faculty members are actively involved in research at additional campus-wide research centers such as the Roberth H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Feinberg Clinical Neuroscience Research Institute, Buehler Center on Aging, and Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience.

The Mental Health Services and Policy Program (MHSPP) at Northwestern University is a multidisciplinary research and education program centered in the Feinberg School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. It is the mental health arm of IHS,  www.northwestern.edu/ihs.  IHS pursues critical research in its programmatic areas of expertise: health economics and financing, health policy, health management and organizational behavior, health outcomes and medical decision making, law and medicine, long-term care and aging, mental health services and policy, disability, and child health services and policy.

The focus of research at MHSPP is on outcomes of mental health services, particularly within managed care environments. Faculty members have written more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and three books as well as developed a set of decision support and outcome management measures for acute psychiatric services, child and adolescent services, and substance treatment.

The Northwestern Behavioral Pharmacology Program (NBPP), operated by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, is dedicated to developing and administering psychopharmacologic clinical trials and outcome studies. The NBPP conducts industry-sponsored pharmaceutical trials involving subject populations with affective, anxiety, psychotic, sleep, behavioral, and dementing disorders in both ambulatory and inpatient settings. Program personnel include investigators from the department's full-time faculty and a staff of experienced nurses, study coordinators, and research assistants.

Neuropsychology Program

Several research activities are ongoing within the neuropsychological program. Much of this research is conducted within the Northwestern University Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, (CNADC), www.brain.northwestern.edu. Drs. Hanna-Pladdy, Johnson, and Weintraub are all involved in dementia and aging research and work closely with the Northwestern Alzheimer’s Disease Center (NADC). Dr. Weintraub is the director of the clinical core of the NADC, which specializes in research of non-Alzheimer’s dementias such as primary progressive aphasia, and cognitive changes associated with mild cognitive impairment and normal aging. Some other areas of interest include cognitive motor disorders and apraxia (Dr. Hanna-Pladdy), motor neuron disease and clinical trials (Dr. Johnson), and longitudinal study of risk factors for cognitive decline involving participants in the Women’s Health Initiative study (Dr. Weintraub).

The neuropsychology program is also involved in other interdisciplinary collaborative research studies. Dr. Johnson works with the Department of Microbiology—Immunology in the study of cognitive changes following stem cell transplant in patients with systemic lupus erthymatosis and multiple sclerosis. Dr. Hanna-Pladdy collaborates with the Movement Disorders and Parkinson’s Disease Center in investigating the cognitive effects of subthalamic deep brain stimulation.  Dr. Hanlon is director of the Inpatient Neuropsychology Service at NMH and chief neuropsychologist with the Division of Psychiatry and Law, Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation. Dr. Hanlon’s research interests include neuropsychological aspects of mild traumatic brain injury, effects of head trauma on chronic psychiatric patients, functional outcome following moderate-severe traumatic brain injury, and forensic neuropsychology, including the neuropsychiatric features of capital murder defendants.

 Psycho-Legal Studies Program

The Psycho-Legal Studies Program, www.psycho-legal.northwestern.edu, explores the link between mental health services and the legal system. Conducting groundbreaking empirical studies, the program focuses on four broad areas: the criminalization of the mentally ill, epidemiologic characteristics of jail detainees, correlations of violence, and juvenile delinquency. Two major ongoing federally funded research projects include the Northwestern Juvenile Project and the Northwestern Victimization Project.