National association awards grants to UF psychiatric researchers

Two faculty members in the UF College of Medicine’s psychiatry department have each won $60,000 grants from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.

Yijun Liu, an assistant professor, is using brain imaging techniques to try to identify differences in emotional responses between two groups of research participants – people whose symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder respond well to medication and those whose symptoms do not.

Dr. Nathan A. Shapira, an assistant professor, is conducting a nine-week clinical trial comparing the safety and effectiveness of two medications for the treatment of patients with Tourette’s syndrome, a disorder characterized by involuntary muscle tics and uncontrolled grunts or other vocalizations. People with Tourette’s also frequently have obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Shapira will analyze whether the medications alleviate pain associated with tics and reduce their frequency, and also whether the drugs affect symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Liu and Shapira are affiliated with UF’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute.