Current Studies
Studies by Topic
All Studies
COGNITIVE and SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE
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Early Visual Processing in Schizophrenia (EVP) - NIMH
Problems in perception and attention are common in schizophrenia, but the exact nature of these problems is not well understood. This research project will gather information on the nature of problems in perception and attention in schizophrenia using behavioral performance measures of visual perception, short term visual memory, social cognition, EEG, and fMRI. The goals of this project are to: 1) understand the neural substrates of visual perceptual abnormalities in schizophrenia using electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging, and 2) understand the determinants of functional outcome in schizophrenia by characterizing the influence of early visual perception on tasks of social cognition and the daily functioning of patients.
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Social Cognition in Schizophrenia – part of the UCLA Translational Center on Neurocognition and Emotion in Schizophrenia - NIMH
The UCLA Center for Neurocognition and Emotion in Schizophrenia is a multidisciplinary institute at UCLA campus devoted to the study of human behavior and mental disorders and is a collaboration between basic behavioral scientists and clinical researchers. All of the clinical investigators of the Center have long standing interests in all aspects of schizophrenia, in how these variables determine functional outcome, and how they change across phases of illness. The Green Lab is involved in one of the Center projects, Social Cognition in Schizophrenia: Interpersonal and Emotional Processes. This project is intended to examine three aspects of social cognition across different phases of illness (prodromal, first-episode, and chronic). The three aspect of social cognition include: 1) the ability to recognize different types of interpersonal relationships, 2) the ability to know what people are thinking or intending, and 3) the ability to process emotional communication.
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Converging Approaches to Gamma Band Abnormalities in Schizophrenia- Department of Veterans Affairs
This project investigates the neural sources that contribute to poor visual perception and poor cognition in schizophrenia patients. Using two basic paradigms to assess visual perception and cognition, 50 schizophrenia patients and 50 healthy controls will have their EEG recorded as well as a separate fMRI scan using the same procedures. It is thought that failures to synchronize neural activity within the gamma-band range (30-70 Hz) in the EEG contribute to poor visual perception and cognition in schizophrenia. Moreover, it is thought that gamma-band activity is more closely tied to fMRI neural activity than traditional ERP measurements. Using two different neuroimaging techniques, this study is taking a converging approach to explore where and when visual and cognitive deficits are seen in schizophrenia patients.
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Social Neuroscience of Schizophrenia – Department
of Veteran’s Affairs
The research evaluates a social neuroscience model of empathy in schizophrenia. Empathy, a fundamental aspect of social cognition, has been defined as the capacity to understand and respond to the unique affective experiences of another person. 33 schizophrenia outpatients and 33 healthy controls will complete complementary electrophysiological and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging paradigms designed to assess empathy’s three component processes: shared representations (mirror neuron system activity), perspective taking, and emotion regulation. This multi-method approach to examining empathy aims to elucidate the neural underpinnings of poor social cognition in schizophrenia.
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Affective Decision Making in Schizophrenia: An Electrophysiological Examination - NARSAD
This project uses affective neuroscience methods to follow up on our earlier findings that individuals with schizophrenia do not effectively incorporate information about rewards and punishments to guide decision-making. ERP paradigms will be administered to 40 schizophrenia outpatients and 40 healthy controls to assess two key components of decision making: 1) Evaluative Categorization: the initial evaluation of and attentional allocation to negative vs. positive stimuli, and 2) Affective Feedback Monitoring: monitoring feedback about expected versus actual response outcomes. Results will help clarify the scope and neural correlates of decision making impairments in schizophrenia.
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Visual Masking and TMS in Schizophrenia - NIMH
This project aims to examine the mechanisms that may underlie early visual processing deficits in schizophrenia. We use behavioral masking and single-pulse TMS masking procedures to assess feedforward and reentrant visual processes in samples of schizophrenic patients and healthy volunteers. This approach would enable us to examine the relative contribution of feedforward and reentrant processes to visual perceptual deficits in schizophrenia and would provide groundwork for examining the neural substrate that may underlie these deficits.
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Spatial and Temporal Properties of Affect Perception in Schizophrenia - NARSAD
This project aims to explore potential mechanisms that might underlie affect perception deficits in schizophrenia. We ask individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls to discriminate between different emotions displayed in still photographs of faces while manipulating the spatial frequency of these stimuli, thereby differentially activating separate neural pathways. In parallel, we assess the temporal properties of affect perception by suppressing the visibility of the stimuli with single-pulse TMS at different intervals.
PREDICTING FUNCITONAL OUTCOME
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Interventions and Practice Research Infrastructure
Program (RISP) - NIMH
This RISP will build a partnership between university-based clinical services researchers at UCLA and USC and practitioners and consumers from a psychosocial rehabilitation service agency in Los Angeles, California (Portals). The goal of this RISP is to implement a research and practice agenda that will translate recent findings on psychobiological deficits in schizophrenia and their remediation into community-based rehabilitation practice. We will address questions relevant to: (i) improving the effectiveness of community-based psychosocial rehabilitation interventions for functional disability in schizophrenia, and (ii) adapting and infusing new knowledge and new interventions into typical psychosocial rehabilitation practice settings in the community. The ultimate objective is to increase the effectiveness of community-based psychosocial rehabilitation by transporting new knowledge and intervention methods into a typical care setting, with the targeted consumer outcomes of functional, clinical, and subjective experience domains that are critical to promoting recovery for individuals with schizophrenia.
DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ASSESSMENTS
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Validation of Intermediate Measures (VIM) – part of MATRICS–C0-primary and Translation
(MATRICS-CT) – NIMH
MATRICS-CT (co-primary and translation) is an NIMH initiative, supported by donations to the NIH Foundation from a partnership of pharmaceutical companies, for facilitating the development of pharmacological agents for cognitive impairments associated with schizophrenia. It was developed to address obstacles that were identified during the NIMH-supported MATRICS (Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia) Initiative. One key obstacle identified in MATRICS is the lack of a consensus regarding functionally meaningful measures with face validity for patient functional improvement that can be used in relatively brief clinical trials. There measures are referred to as intermediate or co-primary measures. As part of MATRICS-CT, we are conducting the Validation of Intermediate Measures (VIM) study to evaluate possible intermediate measures on their psychometric properties and validity.
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Collaboration to Advance Negative Symptom Assessment
in Schizophrenia (CANSAS) - NIMH
In this multi-site study, investigators from UCLA, UC-Berkeley, U. Pennsylvania, and U. Maryland will refine and validate a new assessment instrument, the Negative Symptoms Rating Scale (NSRS), for use in clinical trials and other types of research. The beta version of this scale was developed through a consensus-based process that was initiated at the NIMH-MATRICS Consensus Development Conference on Negative Symptoms. State-of-the-art statistical procedures will be used to validate this scale in sample of 500 people with schizophrenia.
PSYCHOSOCIAL INTERVENTION
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Improving Basic & Social Cognition in schizophrenia
(IBASC)- VA
Impairments in daily functioning are among the most debilitating and treatment resistant features of persons with schizophrenia who reside in the community. These impairments seem to be attributable to deficits in basic cognition and social cognition, and current medications are only partially beneficial in helping these deficits. In this controlled clinical trial, the efficacy of 4 training interventions will be evaluated, including cognitive remediation, social cognition training, a combination of the two, and a control program of skills training. This study will contribute to the development of more comprehensive treatment programs for daily community functioning.
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Errorless Learning for Improving Employment in Schizophrenia (ELIES) - VA
The purpose of this study is to test the effects of a novel training approach called "Errorless Learning" at improving work outcome in persons with severe mental illness. Unemployment among seriously mentally ill veterans is a major health problem, and the GLAVAHS is a flagship VA healthcare center in the U.S. with leaders in research and rehabilitation. The specific aims are to compare the effectiveness of EL vs. conventional training on work performance, test the durability of training effects, and examine secondary benefits to training. Veterans will be asked to participate in the study for a one year follow-up period that will include periodic assessments of work functioning, symptom status, and secondary outcome (e.g., self-esteem, job satisfaction, job stress). The study will run for five years.
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Cognitive Rehabilitation and Work Outcome in
Schizophrenia – NIMH
The purpose of this study is test the effects of errorless learning in a community mental health center offering state-of-the-art employment services under the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of supported employment. Although IPS supported employment has been shown to be effective at getting persons with severe mental illness placed at community jobs, it has been less successful at helping them keep jobs. This study will examine the effects of errorless learning vs. case management specialized employment services on work performance, work outcome, job tenure, and secondary benefits (e.g., self-esteem, job satisfaction). Participants will be recruited through the San Fernando Mental Health Center’s Wellness Program and be followed for one year after job placement. The study will last for five years.
PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGICAL INTERVENTION
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Treatment Units for Neurocognition & Schizophrenia
(TURNS)- NIMH
Patients with schizophrenia often perform well below the mean of controls on neurocognitive tests and newer antipsychotic drugs only make up a fraction of that difference. This gap in the effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs for neurocognition has inspired a search for co-treatments that can be added to an antipsychotic to improve cognition. The TURNS program is an NIMH-supported network of seven sites that provides an infrastructure for clinical studies of pharmacological agents for enhancing neurocognition in patients with schizophrenia. TURNS is testing out new types of drugs that may benefit cognition in schizophrenia. The selection criteria for participants will differ from study to study.
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Treatment and Evaluation Network for Trials in
Schizophrenia (TENETS)
The TENETS network is the extension of TURNS that is testing new drugs that are potentially cognition-enhancing for schizophrenia. This network includes the same sites as TURNS and is supported by funding from private companies.
GENETICS / GENOMICS
This collaboration includes university medical schools across the country including Harvard University, Mount Sinai, UCLA, UCSD, U. of Colorado, U. of Pennsylvania, and the University of Washington. Through this collaborative research project we hope to learn more about the genetic basis of endophenotypes in schizophrenia, including neurocognitive and psychophysiological indicators. Understanding the genetic components of schizophrenia is crucial to finding out about the risk factors, and heritability of this illness. If may also help to create more effective treatments, and hopefully someday, find a cure.