Anthony Grace, a distinguished professor of neuroscience and professor of psychology and psychiatry, received a $634,831 grant as a continuation of his study, “Gating of Information Flow Within the Nucleus Accumbens.”
The project — which focuses on adolescent stress as a risk factor for major mental disorders, particularly the differences between male and females — started in 1997. Using rats, Grace and his colleagues found males are more susceptible to prepubertal stress, leading to an adult state resembling schizophrenia; females on the other hand are resilient to prepubertal stress but susceptible to postpubertal stress, leading to adult affective disorders.
Grace’s other ongoing studies into the neurobiology of schizophrenia involve researching the interaction of the prefrontal cortex and antipsychotic drugs with subcortical dopamine systems and examining the impact of developmental disruption on limbic system function as a model for the pathophysiological changes underlying schizophrenia in humans.