Navigation auf uzh.ch
Navigation auf uzh.ch
Bleuler-Medal 2010
Bleuler Prize-Winner 2010 Prof. Geyer (middle), Prof. Vollenweider, Prof. Seifritz
Mark Geyer is Professor and Vice-Chair for Scientific Affairs in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego. A pioneer in the translational study of sensorimotor gating deficits in schizophrenia and related animal models, Dr. Geyer is the Director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit of the VISN 22 VA’s Mental Illness Research, Clinical, and Education Center and Associate Chief of the Psychophysiology Unit of the VA Center of Excellence for Stress and Mental Health. He has been involved intensively in the NIMH-funded MATRICS, TURNS, and CNTRICS Programs. He has published over 360 peer-reviewed papers and many reviews and chapters. For over three decades, his research program has been supported continuously by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Geyer is an Associate Editor of Neuropsychopharmacology, Fellow and elected Council Member of the ACNP, Fellow of the AAAS, Past-President of the international Serotonin Club, Past-President and Fellow of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, and a member of the Scientific Council of NARSAD. Dr. Geyer’s laboratory uses behavioral measures and psychopharmacological manipulations in rodents and humans to examine the roles of neurotransmitters in behavior, to develop animal models of human drug effects, and to explore information-processing deficits in psychiatric disorders. He uses startle measures of habituation, prepulse inhibition, and anxiety potentiation that are deficient in psychiatric disorders and can be mimicked in rodents by pharmacological, developmental, and genetic manipulations. His group is using a battery of startle tests in a prospective longitudinal Marine Resilience Study, paralleled by neurobiological studies of CRF systems in rodents. He has developed a Behavioral Pattern Monitor for use in rats, mice, and humans. These methods provide translational and multivariate assessments of spatio-temporal patterns of exploratory behavior and are being used in comparisons of schizophrenia and bipolar mania in relationship to corresponding animal models. A current focus of the laboratory is the development of murine tests of specific cognitive domains relevant to the MATRICS and CNTRICS efforts to treat cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.
