The Tennenbaum Family Interdisciplinary Center for Initiatives in Brain Research has selected UCLA neuroscientist Dr. Mark Barad (Westwood) as its first faculty scholar. Based at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, the center established the post to help spur unique, collaborative research into the brain’s plasticity, or adaptability, and accelerate development of new treatments for brain damage and disease.
“The brain’s ability to learn, to change and potentially to heal, is present not only in childhood but also throughout adult life. The process holds enormous implications for the treatment of brain disease and a better understanding of the aging process,� said Dr. Peter Whybrow, Neuropsychiatric Institute director and professor and chair of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
“As Tennenbaum Family Center faculty scholar, Dr. Barad will play a key role over the next two years in bringing together scientists and clinicians from throughout the extended neuroscience family at UCLA to find unique ways to efficiently exploit the brain’s inherent flexibility,� Whybrow said.
Barad’s ongoing research at the Neuropsychiatric Institute, in collaboration with other UCLA neuroscientists, has yielded insights into how brain plasticity may assist in recovery from anxiety disorders. He had previously discovered a method for improving memory and reversing age-related declines in learning in animals.
“The Tennenbaum Family Center is providing UCLA with an enormously exciting opportunity to jump-start translational research projects that will bring the enormous strength of UCLA in basic neuroscience to bear on improving treatments in psychiatry,� said Barad, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences.
“I hope to focus the first two years of the program on finding effective ways to involve the powerful group of learning and memory researchers at UCLA in applying basic knowledge about brain and behavioral plasticity in collaborations on an array of clinical problems,� Barad said. “These include developmental delay in children, age-related memory loss, brain repair and regeneration after trauma or stroke, and psychotherapy, especially for anxiety disorders.�
Barad joined UCLA after a residency in psychiatry at Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Eric Kandel at Columbia University. He interned in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, after graduating from Yale University in 1991 with an M.D. and a Ph.D. in human genetics.
The Tennenbaum Family Center was created earlier this year with a four-year, $1 million gift from Michael E. and Suzanne Tennenbaum. Michael Tennenbaum is managing member of Tennenbaum and Company, a private Los Angeles-based investment firm he founded in 1996.
In addition to the faculty scholar program, the center is encouraging research into brain plasticity by providing seed money to promising research projects, offering graduate student and post-doctoral fellowship support, and promoting awareness of the center and its work.
The UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute is an interdisciplinary research and education institute devoted to the understanding of complex human behavior, including the genetic, biological, behavioral and sociocultural underpinnings of normal behavior, and the causes and consequences of neuropsychiatric disorders. In addition to conducting fundamental research, the institute faculty seek to develop effective treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders, improve access to mental health services and shape national health policy regarding neuropsychiatric disorders.