Imagine a world without mental illness. NARSAD believes such a reality is possible and works every day to try to attain it.
How does NARSAD expect to achieve this vision? With a unique approach that relies on science. First, NARSAD invests in the best and brightest scientific minds throughout the world to unravel the complexities of schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and many other psychiatric diseases. Then, NARSAD continues to support the researchers as they use their findings to develop the next-generation of diagnostics and treatments for these conditions. With enough effort, NARSAD expects scientists someday to discover preventions and cures for these devastating illnesses.
For the past 22 years, with the help of thousands of donors, NARSAD has given over $238 million and 3,516 grants to researchers who have helped pioneer breakthroughs in deciphering how the brain develops, how its component parts act and how this key organ may differ in people with mental illness. Their efforts have led to new drugs, devices and rehabilitative approaches to care for people with a wide range of brain and behavior disorders.
Today, though, is an unprecedented time in the history of medicine. Amazing technological advances occur daily in understanding the cellular causes of neuropsychiatric conditions and in seeing the brain at work. NARSAD-funded scientists now are using the latest innovations from the human genome project to understand the relationship between genes, the environment and mental illness. They are peering inside the mind and putting together a picture of how people with mental illness think, feel and perceive the world. It is only a matter of time before scientists will be able to conquer these disorders.
If you are here at our web site, most likely either you or someone close to you has been recently diagnosed or is living with a major psychiatric disease. What can NARSAD do for you? NARSAD can provide you with vital information and news regarding treatments and research about psychiatric diseases. These pages also describe how NARSAD funds research, what research NARSAD supports and how you can help.
Indeed, NARSAD needs your help. NARSAD relies on the support of volunteers and donors who believe, like NARSAD does, in employing science to create a better future for our loved ones.
We hope you will join us in our quest.
(Great Neck, N.Y. - January 11, 2010) — Johns Hopkins researchers have uncovered new findings that suggest that manipulations of the DISC1 gene during prenatal periods, postnatal periods or both ...
January 12, 2010 - 8:10am
Researchers recently broke new ground in finding the genetic causes of mental illness, identifying a specific region in the genome associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and ...
December 15, 2009 - 8:25am
While scientists have long known autism is highly hereditary, their challenge has been identifying the genetic factors associated with it. In a recent study, researchers took an important step ...
December 1, 2009 - 7:21am
The reason you can speak these words aloud - and chimpanzees can't - may be clearer, thanks to the findings of a new study.
The story starts in 2001, when scientists identified a critical gene ...
November 24, 2009 - 7:33am
Although great strides have been made in treating depression, those who suffer from treatment-resistant depression have continued to present a serious challenge to doctors seeking a way to help ...
October 16, 2009 - 3:20pm
For someone who's depressed, the wait for relief can seem endless.
In more than half of all patients, the first antidepressant drug that's prescribed simply doesn't work. And it can take months ...
October 16, 2009 - 3:15pm
California Institute of Technology researchers have uncovered the area of the brain responsible for perception of personal space.
The findings, to be reported August 30 in the journal ...
September 15, 2009 - 7:07am
A voluntary recall has been issued by generic drug maker Barr Laboratories for the following medications which are typically used to treat symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder ...
August 18, 2009 - 11:20am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - July 23, 2009) — NARSAD Scientific Council member and Distinguished Investigator J. John Mann, M.D., of Columbia University, is one of four leading experts in suicide research ...
August 11, 2009 - 8:25am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - July 16, 2009) — Jill A. Morris, Ph.D., the recipient of a 2005 NARSAD Young Investigator Award, is the lead author of two recent studies providing new insight into the role ...
August 4, 2009 - 7:32am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - July 15, 2009) — NARSAD Scientific Council member and four-time NARSAD grant recipient James L. Kennedy, M.D., is co-directing a program called neuroIMAGENE, launched this ...
July 28, 2009 - 7:27am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - July 10, 2009) — NARSAD Scientific Council member Edwin Cook, M.D., is participating in a large-scale, federally funded program to investigate the genetic, neurobiological and ...
July 21, 2009 - 7:25am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - June 15, 2009) — Levels of a substance called kynurenic acid (KYNA) are elevated in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid of people with schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, and ...
July 10, 2009 - 8:39am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - June 16, 2009) — Researchers seeking to understand the causes of Sanfilippo syndrome type B, a rare genetic lysosomal storage disease, were surprised to find protein aggregates ...
July 7, 2009 - 8:21am
(New York, NY - June 09, 2009) — Preschool children whose mothers had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, as a result of exposure to the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks, were ...
June 30, 2009 - 8:51am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - June 12, 2009) — A drug commonly given to children with autism to reduce repetitive behaviors is ineffective compared to placebo, and in some children may actually increase ...
June 30, 2009 - 8:32am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - June 24, 2009) — A study published in the June 17 issue of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, contradicts the findings of a much-celebrated 2003 report, ...
June 30, 2009 - 8:02am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 29, 2009) — A team of Mayo Clinic researchers that included NARSAD 2006 Independent Investigator Mark Frye, M.D., has found that providing care for patients with bipolar ...
June 23, 2009 - 8:50am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — While it is known that hereditary factors enhance the risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, how this occurs has remained largely obscure. Now researchers ...
June 2, 2009 - 7:48am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — NARSAD Investigator Edward S. Boyden, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have demonstrated that optical methods can be used to ...
June 2, 2009 - 7:42am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — Research led by NARSAD Investigator Karl Deisseroth, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University Medical Center, suggests that brain cells need to follow specific ...
June 2, 2009 - 7:35am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — A brain protein involved in fear behavior and anxiety may represent a new target for depression therapies, according to a report in the April 29th Journal of ...
June 2, 2009 - 7:23am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 26, 2009) — Stanley F. Nelson, M.D., whose early research was supported by a NARSAD Young Investigator Award in 1994, and his team at the University of California, Los ...
June 2, 2009 - 7:12am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 13, 2009) — For half a century, scientists have believed that high-frequency brain waves, known as gamma oscillations, were crucial to consciousness, attention, learning ...
May 19, 2009 - 8:39am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 14, 2009) — The long-held view that levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin are low in people with depression has now been challenged by NARSAD Distinguished Investigator ...
May 19, 2009 - 7:47am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 12, 2009) — NARSAD Young Investigator Tracie Paine, Ph.D., was the lead author of a study by Harvard neuroscientists that identified a new link between a brain enzyme and ...
May 19, 2009 - 7:35am
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 08, 2009) — In people who suffer from conditions such as schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, emotional experiences can become distorted.
NARSAD Young ...
May 8, 2009 - 4:53pm
(Great Neck, N.Y. - May 07, 2009) — Distinguished investigator David Valle, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has been studying the genetic make-up of a well-characterized ...
May 8, 2009 - 4:52pm
NARSAD Investigator Linda Brzustowicz, M.D., and colleagues at Rutgers University have identified a specific DNA change -- a functional change that increases gene expression -- that appears to ...
April 29, 2009 - 11:25am
How to manage adolescent depression is a problem that has vexed clinicians and parents ever since the Food and Drug Administration issued a “black-box” warning several years ago that adolescents ...
April 29, 2009 - 11:20am
A compound that occurs naturally in the brain and other areas of the body may be a promising new treatment for the most severe and disruptive symptoms of schizophrenia.
A pilot study at the ...
April 29, 2009 - 11:15am
A receptor for glutamate, the most prominent neurotransmitter in the brain, plays a key role in the process of "unlearning," according to researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. ...
April 20, 2009 - 11:27am
The helpless behavior commonly linked to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is preceded by stress-related loss of synapses -- the mechanism of communication between neurons -- in ...
April 20, 2009 - 11:22am
An international team of scientists led by NARSAD Investigator Jin-Hee Han, Ph.D., of the University of Toronto, has succeeded in erasing a fear memory in laboratory mice, according to a report ...
April 20, 2009 - 11:20am
Researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, including NARSAD Investigator Yingwei Mao, Ph.D., have found that inhibiting a key brain ...
April 7, 2009 - 4:42pm
Investigator Mani N. Pavuluri, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Chicago used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to probe the brain-circuit dysfunctions underlying ...
April 7, 2009 - 4:40pm
Applying a major advance in genetic research called DNA micoarray technology, NARSAD Investigator Jose de Leon, M.D., and his team at the University of Kentucky, screened 4,532 psychiatric ...
March 26, 2009 - 3:31pm
Investigators Yvette I. Sheline, M.D., and Deanna M. Barch, Ph.D., and a team at Washington University in St. Louis have identified a key difference in the way the brain functions in people who ...
March 26, 2009 - 3:28pm
Social anxiety disorder is thought to involve emotional hyperactivity, cognitive distortions and ineffective emotion regulation. NARSAD Investigator Turhan Canli of Stony Brook University ...
March 16, 2009 - 11:36am
A broad-based study of data from more than two million nuclear families in Sweden has provided evidence of possible common genetic determinants of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Reporting ...
March 16, 2009 - 11:32am
Investigator Lynette C. Daws, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, have found a mechanism that may explain why antidepressant treatments fail to ...
February 11, 2009 - 3:30pm
Childhood separation anxiety disorder can heighten the risk for panic disorder in early adulthood, and both separation anxiety disorder and panic disorder are associated with heightened ...
February 9, 2009 - 1:40pm
Rachel Marsh, Ph.D., a 2007 NARSAD Young Investigator, and colleagues at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, have found that women with bulimia nervosa appear to ...
February 3, 2009 - 1:59pm
How is it that when you see someone you met 10 years ago, you still recognize them? How do these transient events become long lasting in the brain, and what potential role does the birth of new ...
February 3, 2009 - 1:55pm