Savita G. Bhakta, M.B.B.S., Fei Wang, Ph.D.

In April two faculty members were awarded 2008 Young Investigator Awards from NARSAD, the world’s leading charity dedicated to funding research on psychiatric disorders. They are among 220 early-career scientists in the United States and 11 other countries who will receive funds this year from NARSAD to advance their research on mental illnesses. Each will receive $60,000 over the next two years. Savita G. Bhakta, M.B.B.S., plans to gain a better understanding of how cannabinoids (chemical compounds found in marijuana) induce schizophrenia-like behavioral and cognitive effects in healthy people and exacerbate symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Fei Wang, Ph.D., will use multimodal MRI technology to study adolescents with bipolar disorder. The study will identify abnormalities in the structural integrity of connections in brain circuitry serving the emotional processing that are implicated in the illness, as well as associated disruptions in circuitry function.