As the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) announced the results of its Fall 2023 project grant competition this week, we wish to congratulate our faculty and principal investigators Dr. Lakshmi Yatham, Dr. Kyooseob Ha, Dr. Kamyar Keramatian, and Dr. Lynn Raymond, along with their teams, who were awarded grant funding to support their respective projects below:
Psilocybin Assisted Therapy (PAT) for Treatment Resistant Depression in Bipolar II Disorder (TRD.BD-II): A Randomized Controlled Trial
- Principal Investigators: Lakshmi N. Yatham, Kyooseob Ha, Muhammad I. Husain, Kamyar Keramatian, Joshua D. Rosenblat, Gayatri Saraf.
- Co-investigators: Scott T. Aaronson, Trisha Chakrabarty, Jess G. Fiedorowicz, Sophia Frangou, Simon Hatcher, Raymond W. Lam, Mahesh Menon, Erin Michalak, Marco Solmi, Ivan Torres, Monnica Williams, Hubert H. Wong, Joshua Woolley
As few medications are available for treatment of the depressive phases of Bipolar II Disorder (BD II), developing new treatments that are effective and have a good safety profile is an urgent unmet need for people with BD II. Psychedelics, particularly psilocybin have acquired significant research interest due to their effects on mood and new learning, and have been associated with improvements in depression in conjunction with therapy. READ MORE
Investigating altered sensorimotor processing in Huntington disease
- Principal Investigator: Lynn A. Raymond
- Co-investigator: Timothy H. Murphy
Huntington disease (HD) is an inherited brain disorder with average onset in middle age and progressive impairment of movement, thinking and mood. Neurodegeneration is most severe in the cortex and striatum, and the first changes occur at synapses within the cortex and between the cortex and striatum. Although genetic approaches to reduce the mutated protein in HD patients are in clinical trials, evidence suggests changes in synapses may not be reversed once the disease has started. There is a critical need to develop complementary therapies to normalize function of brain connections before clinical disease onset, by investigating the circuit and cellular mechanisms underlying those changes. READ MORE
If you are a PI who was awarded funding in the Fall 2023 CIHR Competition, but was not mentioned in this post, please reach out to Margaret Koshi (margaret.koshi@ubc.ca).