From Epidemiology to Mechanisms of Illness

Excerpt

Schizophrenia research encompasses many different cat egories of observation: (a) genetic research, which examines variants in single base pairs, (b) cellular and applied neuroscience, including animal models, (c) clinical research representing a broad spectrum of patient-centered research, and (d) population-based epidemiology and health services research. Each field of research has a natural tendency to become more specialized and, as a consequence, more inward looking. Meta-research, the study of the process of research per se, shows that creativity tends to occur at the boundaries of disciplines and research areas. This chapter examines ways to facilitate this type of cross-disciplinary translational research. Examples are provided of collaborative scientific programs that have used clues from fields such as epidemiology and genetics, and these clues are explored via the prism of various neuroscience platforms (e.g., molecular, cellular, behavioral, animal models, brain imaging). Cross-disciplinary projects have the potential to catalyze new discoveries in neuroscience. Our field needs to build efficient shared discovery platforms to encourage greater cross-fertilization between schizophrenia research and the general neuroscience research community.