The People of the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center
The People of the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research
Center
Dr. Pearlson completed medical
school in the United Kingdom and a graduate program in philosophy of
mind/philosophy of science at Columbia University. He was subsequently at
Johns Hopkins Hospital as a resident, postdoctoral fellow, and ultimately
Professor in the Department of psychiatry, with Dr. Paul McHugh. While at
Hopkins he was the founding director of the Division of Psychiatry
Neuroimaging. Dr. Pearlson moved to Connecticut in 2001, as the founding
director of the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center. He is the holder of a
MERIT award from NIMH, was awarded a Distinguished Investigator award from
NARSAD, the Ziskin-Somerfeld Award by the Society of Biological Psychiatry
and a Michael Visiting Professorship by the Weizmann Institute. He is on
NARSAD�s Scientific Council, on the Institute of Scientific Information�s
Most Highly Cited Publications list and was a Frontiers of Science Lecturer,
at the 2004 Annual APA Meeting. Dr. Pearlson received the 2015 Stanley Dean
Award for Schizophrenia Research, from the American College of
Psychiatrists, and in the same year was inducted into the Johns Hopkins
Society of Scholars. Eight of his prior trainees are currently full
professors and direct their own laboratories.
Dr. Pearlson directs several complementary programs of research. One is the
COBBRA lab, which in several NIMH-funded RO1 grants, that are part of the
BSNIP-consortium, investigate effects of psychosis risk alleles on cognitive
function and associated structural brain patterns, DTI connectivity and
functional MRI BOLD patterns.
Additional projects include an NIDA-funded RO1 grant to examine the
neuroscience of marijuana-impaired driving, using a sophisticated simulated
driving paradigm. Dr. Pearlson is also part of Dr. John Krystal�s NIAAA
Center for the Translational Neuroscience of Alcoholism, with a project
examining functional MRI response to reward tasks in sons and daughters of
fathers with alcoholism that explores the effects of an experimental
compound on rebalancing dopamine/glutamate activity in cerebral reward
areas.
Additionally Dr. Pearlson is the co-founder of the annual BrainDance awards,
started in 2004, that is open to high school students across New England.
The BrainDance Awards encourage students to gain knowledge about psychiatric
diseases and to develop a more tolerant and realistic perspective toward
people with severe psychiatric problems by offering awards for art, essays
and scientific projects related to mental illness. Winners attend an annual
lecture related to mental illness and/or stigma and showcase their work.
He is also a member of the Connecticut Board of Physicians on medical
marijuana that advises the Department of Consumer Protection on medical
marijuana-related issues.
Roles and Responsibilities include:
- Formulate & plan new research
studies.
- Integrate clinical,
epidemiological & neuro-imaging study data.
- Educate researchers.
Objectives/Interests in Neuropsychiatry:
- Structural and functional
cerebral correlates of normal aging and of major neuro-developmental and
neuro-degenerative psychiatric disorders.
- Functional cerebral actions of
abused drugs.
- Interactions between genetics
- neuro-imaging and pre-symptomatic expression of CNS disease in at-risk
persons.
Publications
Click
here for Dr.
Pearlson's CV, Adobe Acrobat Required.
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