University of California, Irvine

Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior

The Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior has a tripartite mission of high level research, expert and compassionate clinical care and superb educational programs. The research mission of the department is to develop outstanding research programs in genetics, stress, schizophrenia, depression, brain imaging, clinical trials and basic science studies of neuropsychiatric disorders and aging.

Brain Bank

The Brain Bank collects brains from schizophrenic, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder subjects and controls. The Psychological Autopsy team at UC Irvine conducts thorough clinical characterizations of cases using a 142-item protocol. Members of the Brain Bank conduct rigorous evaluation of brain tissue quality including pH and gross and microscopic neuropathological examination.

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Functional Genomics

A variety of genomic studies are being conducted at UC Irvine including the use of lymphoblastoid cell lines to study biomarkers of major psychiatric diseases from geographically isolated populations, CNV analysis and linkage studies, comparison of the blood and brain transcriptomes, and biomarker studies of suicide.

Genetic Follow-up Studies

Several follow-up studies of genetic data are ongoing including: (1) investigating the role of smoking in gene expression and its influence on major psychiatric disorders, (2) gene expression patterns in suicide risk and metallothionein expression as a suicide biomarkers, and (3) circadian genes.

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