British Columbia Schizophrenia Society

In June, we awarded a scholarship to William Shipley, who is working towards a PhD in Neuroscience under Prof. Elton Ngan in the Psychiatry Department of UBC.
The main focus of his research will be directed at identifying the brain mechanisms that permit people with schizophrenia to carry beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence that does not support such beliefs.

The scholarship consists of a stipend (or living allowance) of $11,000 per year for three years, 2008, 2009 and 2010. The Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR)
Matches our contribution, so that the aggregate “Mind” payment of $33,000 effectively becomes worth $66,000!

In July, we completed our 2008 Grants Competition, to which the Board had allocated a maximum of $60,000. On the advice of our Research Advisory Committee, we decided to allocate this money in the form of three grants of approximately $20,000 each. Please note that these grants directly support research activities, as compared with stipends. The winners of the competition were:

• Dr. Ann Marie Craig, UBC Prof.of Psychiatry and Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology. Dr.Craig’s work is directed at the identification of individual genetic variations that predispose towards schizophrenia. This is very basic work, but should ultimately lead to completely new ways of treating diseases that have strong genetic components.

• Dr. Alasdair Barr, UBC Assistant Prof. Dept. of Anaesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Dr. Barr’s work is focused on the phenomenon of weight gain, which is a side-effect of the atypical psychotic drugs. While these are the most effective drugs developed for schizophrenia to date, the weight gain is a deterrent for patients to take their medicines and can lead to other health problems associated with obesity. The reasons for the weight gain is not at present understood.

• D. Elton Ngan, UBC Assistant Prof., Dept. of Psychiatry and William Shipley (the graduate student who was also awarded the stipend). This part of their work is entitled ” Logic, Intuition and Delusions: Dual Processing of Biases in Decision Making in Schizophrenia”.