Hilary P. Blumberg, MD, John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience at Yale, has joined the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation’s Scientific Council.
The council reviews and selects scientific research that will be funded by the foundation, which since 1987 has awarded more than $360 million in grants to more than 4,000 scientists worldwide.
The foundation’s mission is to help alleviate the suffering caused by mental illness by awarding grants that will lead to advances and breakthroughs in scientific research. Council members decide which research ideas have the greatest potential to lead to breakthroughs.
Blumberg is Director of the Mood Disorders Research Program (MDRP) at Yale. She focuses her research on understanding the causes that underlie mood disorders, including bipolar disorders and depression.
She was one of the first researchers to demonstrate differences during mania in adults with bipolar disorder in prefrontal cortex functioning, and in adolescents with bipolar disorder in the amygdala, a part of the brain important in emotional processing.
Earlier in 2016, she was named co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Bipolar Foundation, which provides funding for scientific research into the causes and treatment of bipolar disorder.
Blumberg joins other scientists with ties to Yale and the Connecticut Mental Health Center on the foundation’s Scientific Council, which has 165 members.