The Laboratory of Translational Psychiatry
Our Mission
The Laboratory of Translational Psychiatry is dedicated to investigating the mechanistic understanding of the causes of neuropsychiatric disease and to using this knowledge to improve disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.
Our Approach
Our approach is to develop and refine preclinical models of human disease using state-of-the-art approaches, including cellular and molecular strategies, such as CutNRun and scnRNAseq, and circuit-based techniques, such as optogenetics, chemogenetics, and fiber photometry.
Our preclinical models are informed by our human subject studies, and we endeavor to advance our preclinical findings forward into the clinic, in the form of novel therapeutics and biomarker identification.
We are dedicated to bidirectional translation and discovery between preclinical and human neuroscience.
Our Focus
Our studies are grounded in the principle that neuropsychiatric disease risk and resilience result from the combined influences of Genetics, the Environment, and Developmental windows of experience; GxExD.
Genetic areas of study are focused on epigenetic encoding of prior life events that impact unique developmental periods, influencing brain function and disease susceptibility & resilience. The principal epidemiological factor predictive of neuropsychiatric disease is exposure to adversity or trauma.
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We use chronic stress to model disease-relevant changes in mouse behavior, and examine how the function of the synapses and circuits that underlie that behavior is affected. We then test the ability of novel therapeutics, such as psilocybin, to restore normal function. Preclinical data are aligned with data from human subjects.
As individuals are at greater risk for the deleterious consequences of trauma and adversity if experienced at various stages across the lifespan, including early childhood and adolescence, we build this into our approaches. We also include sex as an important variable in all our studies.
How We Do It
The combined power of The Bale & Thompson labs is in addressing both ends of neuropsychiatric disease: the causal mechanisms that increase disease risk and the novel therapeutic targets to treat disease.
The Bale Lab
We use molecular and cellular approaches to examine causal mechanisms of how stress impacts brain function across the lifespan and differences between males and females.
The Thompson Lab
We use validated preclinical models to study the functional mechanisms causing the symptoms of psychiatric disease and how they are reversed by existing and novel therapeutics.
more about thompson lab
Psychiatry Professor Tracy Bale, PhD, Elected to National Academy of Medicine
Bale, the Anschutz Foundation Endowed Chair in Women’s Integrated Mental and Physical Health, is one of the 100 new members inducted in 2024.
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