Utilization of never-medicated bipolar disorder patients towards development and validation of a peripheral biomarker profile.

There are currently no biological tests that differentiate patients with bipolar disorder (BPD) from healthy controls. While there is evidence that peripheral gene expression differences between patients and controls can be utilized as biomarkers for psychiatric illness, it is unclear whether current use or residual effects of antipsychotic and mood stabilizer medication drives much of the differential transcription. We therefore tested whether expression changes in first-episode, never-medicated BPD patients, can contribute to a biological classifier that is less influenced by medication and could potentially form a practicable biomarker assay for BPD.

The NKI-Rockland Sample: A Model for Accelerating the Pace of Discovery Science in Psychiatry.

The National Institute of Mental Health strategic plan for advancing psychiatric neuroscience calls for an acceleration of discovery and the delineation of developmental trajectories for risk and resilience across the lifespan. To attain these objectives, sufficiently powered datasets with broad and deep phenotypic characterization, state-of-the-art neuroimaging, and genetic samples must be generated and made openly available to the scientific community. The enhanced Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland Sample (NKI-RS) is a response to this need.

Evidence for association of hyperprolinemia with schizophrenia and a measure of clinical outcome.

There are multiple genetic links between schizophrenia and a deficit of proline dehydrogenase (PRODH) enzyme activity. However, reports testing for an association of schizophrenia with the resulting proline elevation have been conflicting. The objectives of this study were to investigate whether hyperprolinemia is associated with schizophrenia, and to measure the relationship between plasma proline, and clinical features and symptoms of schizophrenia.