Our Priorities for Research
We fund research projects, both locally and around the world, that hold the greatest promise in the search for cures. To be a beneficiary, a project must share its discoveries in the public domain, so that anyone can find and use its knowledge. To date, Music Festival-sponsored findings have been published in such journals as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Schizophrenia Research, and the Archives of General Psychiatry. Schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder are the primary illnesses we focus our research sponsorship on.
Projects we support
Do antipsychotics work via influence on gene expression? This year's first "Rising Star" Award
One of the most effective ways we have found to stimulate breakthrough research is to support scientists early in their careers. To do this, we have joined NARSAD to create the "Rising Star" Awards: these are $250,000 grants to help outstanding young scientists continue and expand their research. In addition to the schizophrenia research award we have given annually for the last four years, this year we are offering four new awards for work in the development of means to provide individualized therapies for patients, and for pioneering research into the genetics of mental illnesses.
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Dr. Schahram Akbarian, M.D., Ph.D., is this year's first winner of the "Rising Star" award for schizophrenia research! Dr. Akbarian, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is investigating how dysfunctional gene expression in the brain may lead to the development of schizophrenia. With the funding from the festival grant, Dr. Akbarian is proposing a study called "The 'chromatin landscape' of prefrontal neurons: Developmental regulation and potential alterations in schizophrenia." This study may contribute a whole new way to look at how antipsychotic medications work:
Says Dr. Akbarian, "The prefrontal cortex is one of the brain regions thought to contribute to the symptoms of schizophrenia. One of the major theories schizophrenia implies that some genes are not activated to the same degree in the patients’ prefrontal cortex as they are in healthy subjects. However, until now the molecular techniques required to study gene activation had not yet been developed.
"Our laboratory uses innovative techniques to study gene activation in nerve cells of the human prefrontal cortex, using brain tissue that was donated by individuals and their families after death. Specifically, we are able to examine chemical tags of histones, a type of protein attached to the DNA of genes. These chemical tags define the level of gene activation.
"Using this particular technique, we will examine – on a genome wide level – the pattern of gene activation during normal brain development and search for potential changes in schizophrenia. Finally, our recent research indicates that one of the most effective antipsychotic drugs – clozapine – may change the chemical tags of the histone proteins in the prefrontal cortex. This is potentially very exciting, because research on this subject may help to develop better and even more effective antipsychotic drugs, that may avoid some of the serious side effects which sometimes are encountered when taking clozapine."
Dr. Akbarian follows Dr. Akira Sawa of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Eva Anton of the University of North Carolina and Dr. Linda Brzustowicz of Rutgers University as extraordinary scientists who have received this grant from the Music Festival.
Healing brains with schizophrenia through neuroplasticity training at UCSF
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What if you could retrain your brain to be capable in ways it had lost? That is the essence of Dr. Sophia Vinogradov's neuroplasticity program at UCSF. Since the Music Festival provided the seed money to start up her program in 1999, Dr. Vinogradov's team has been engaging volunteers both with and without schizophrenia in an evolving series of computer brain games that literally give your listening skills a workout. Since one major aspect of schizophrenia involves impaired verbal perception, memory and response, it is easy to conceive why this program has been so successful at improving patients' abilities in crucial ways: In one study (see results poster), subjects who underwent the brain fitness program improved on indices of auditory processing and neurocognitive performance by 40 percent, while their levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (a chemical correlated with brain health) went up by 20 percent. Both of these constitute extremely statistically significant results. "We are potentially on the verge of developing an entirely new treatment approach that will change how we think about what we can offer our patients," says Dr. Vinogradov.
Now, with these results in hand, Dr. Vinogradov's program has received a grant from the Stanley Medical Research Insititute, and two grants from the NIMH, the latest of which is allowing her to extend her research to prodromal patients at risk for developing schizophrenia.
Psychosis prediction and prevention: CAPPS
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If teens who are at risk for developing psychosis can be identified and treated before the onset of a full-blown illness, they have a chance to avoid ever getting sick. At the Staglin Music Festival Center for the Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States (“CAPPS”) at UCLA, Dr. Ty Cannon is heading a team of scientists and clinicians to develop the means to one day head off psychosis as a regular clinical intervention.
Together with seven similar facilities in a consortium called the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS), CAPPS has led the way toward this goal by recruiting 291 high-risk young people to participate in a 2-1/2 year study to find out just how accurately psychosis can be predicted. Their results have been stunning: they've discovered that when a teen displays a combination of five risk factors in behavior and family history, there is a 65-80% chance that he or she will develop psychosis within 1 to 3 years. “When teens have a dive in grades or drop out of the school band, and it happens against a backdrop of family history of schizophrenia and recent troubling changes in perception – like hearing nondistinct buzzing or crackling sounds, or seeing fleeting images that disappear with a second glance – more often than not it indicates that psychosis is fairly imminent,” says Dr. Cannon. This level of predictive accuracy is comparable to that for physical illnesses such as diabetes or heart disease, and will hopefully prove a major asset to young people at risk.
“Having this more accurate ability to measure who’s likely to develop psychosis will be a great asset. Identifying young people in need of intervention is crucial, but the results of this research can help us do more than that. It can eventually help us determine the most effective time to intervene,” says Thomas Insel, M.D., director of the NIMH.
Now, starting to use this predictive approach, CAPPS has treated over 100 people between the ages of 12 and 35. Of these, only about 10% have experienced psychotic episodes, but have been able to substantially improve their social and educational abilities with therapy.
Dr. Cannon has also been a leader in the formation of the International Prodromal Research Network (IPRN), comprising 18 similar programs from around the country and the world. The IPRN has used standardized recruiting procedures and technologies to increase its client pool to over 1500, strengthening the search for cures. This network will convene for the eighth time this year in the fall. The Festival, together with a number of pharmaceutical companies, provides funding for these conferences.
Another new UCLA facility receiving substantial support from the Music Festival is the Cognitive Neuroscience Center. Since it received its initial grant from the Music Festival in 2005 to support its state-of-the-art brain imaging and genetic research technologies, coupled with an additional grant from the Betty O'Shaughnessy Foundation, it has demonstrated a substantial overlap in the genetic bases for schizophrenia and mood disorders such as bipolar disorder. Using this discovery, it has won an additional $14.6 million grant from the National Institute for Mental Health to continue to expand this project.
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Music Festival Assistant Professors at UCSF
The Music Festival is continuing to support UCSF’s Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry, directed by Samuel Barondes, M.D., by helping to recruit four more scientists. Each new Assistant Professor will receive funds to equip their laboratory and establish their research program. The first of these positions has been awarded to Susan Voglmaier, M.D., Ph.D. who trained in medicine and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins and in psychiatry at UCSF. Susan is studying the synaptic effects of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that has been implicated in the symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Other Cutting-Edge Programs Supported by the Music Festival
The Roskamp Institute receives funding through the Music Festival, and is making promising progress in Alzheimer’s and depression research.
In addition, the Music Festival has contributed almost $3 million toward funding Young Investigators and Principal Investigators through NARSAD, the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.
Another Festival beneficiary, and the only non-research beneficiary, is Napa’s Aldea group. Working for the diagnosis and treatment of emotionally and developmentally challenged children and adults, Aldea receives partial support annually from Festival funds.
How to support this research
Many of these scientists will be present at this year's Music Festival for Mental Health on September 13, 2008. For a chance to meet them in person, please buy tickets to attend. Or, you can make a tax-deductible donation to the cause. To learn more, please see the page on this year's event, or email or call us at (707) 944-0477 if you have any questions. Thank you!
Shari, Garen, Brandon and Shannon Staglin
P.O. Box 680 Rutherford, CA 94573
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