Connections 3 Surprising Insights Into Diseases of the Brain
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NYUTHE MAGAZINE OF NEW YORK UNIVERSITYPH SCHOOL OF MEDICINEYSICIASPRING - 2010N volume 61 • No. ConneCTIONS 3 SURPRISING INSIGHTS INTO DISEASES OF THE BRAIN PLUS AudITORY BRAINSTEM IMPLANTS IMAGES OF ADDICTION THE PEAK EXPERIENCE Help Us Make Dreams Come True EV ERY ASPIRING PHYSICIAN DREAMS OF THE DAY SOMEONE WILL MAKE A GIFT ONLINE CALL HIM OR HER “DOCTOR” FOR THE FIRST TIME. But getting there Please visit www.nyu.edu/alumni. takes a lot more than hard work and dedication—it takes resources. By contributing to the NYU School of Medicine Alumni Campaign, you help To discuss special ensure that our next generation of physicians will have access to the best giving opportunities, teaching and research, along with a competitive financial assistance package. call Anthony J. Grieco, MD, Associate Dean for Alumni Relations, When you make a gift, you help us guarantee that all of our students will at 212.263.5390. have the means to complete our rigorous education. One day, you may even have the privilege of addressing them yourself as “Doctor.” Thank you for your generosity. THE MAGAZINE OF NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE SPRING 2010 VOLUME 61 NO. NYUPHYSICIAN 3 New York University COVER STORIES Martin Lipton, Esq. CONNECTING TO MEMORY Chairman, Board of Trustees Surprising insights into diseases of the brain. John Sexton President MEMORIES OF FEAR Robert Berne 10 Exective Vice President Can we erase the bad memories for Health associated with phobias, panic attacks, • and anxiety? Neuroscientist Joseph NYU Langone LeDoux, PhD, thinks it may be possible, Medical Center and his transforming research is Kenneth G. Langone attracting wide attention. Chairman, Board of Trustees 14 MEMORY AND THE SENSES Robert I. Grossman, MD New findings by pioneering Dean and Chief Executive Officer researcher Donald Wilson, PhD, are revealing that our olfactory system serves Deborah Loeb Bohren Vice President, as a window into how our brains first Communications and begin to malfunction when diseases such Public Affairs as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia strike. • NYU PHYSICIAN 18 CONNECTING TO SOUND Steven B. Abramson, MD For those left profoundly deaf, Anthony J. Grieco, MD (’63) a new type of high-tech implant that Editors, Science bypasses the auditory nerve helps restore and Medicine some hearing. Frank W. Lopez Managing Editor 22 IMPROVING MRI Marjorie Shaffer 10 Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) Senior Editor and diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), are proving helpful in mapping the brain’s Royce Flippin Contributing Editor “HuMANS HAVE TWO MAJOR PROBLEMS microstructures. WITH MEMORY. SOMETIMES WE CAN’T Rob Hewitt Art Director REMEMBER, And SOMETIMES WE CAN’T Sherry Zucker FORGET.” JOSEPH LEDOUX, PHD Print Production Coordinator Mel Minter Copy Editor DEPARTMENTS ON THE COVER:• 02 F rom the Dean 04 News from Medicine 26 PATIENT STORIES ILLUstRatioN BY •Sensational Research •Storming the Gates ANCIENT DRUG FOR TERMINAlly Jeffrey Decoster •Pulitzer Prize for Bellevue •Herpes: The Reawakening ILL. Can psilocybin, once known as the Literary Press •Taming Runaway “psychedelic” mushroom, ease extreme 03 A round Campus Inflammation emotional distress at the end of life? Plans Advance for •Sounding an Early Alarm Integrating New Kimmel on Alzheimer’s 28 A LUMNI PROFILE Pavilion and Renovated •The Long and NEW IMAGE OF ADDICTION. Tisch Hospital (Un)Winding Road of DNA Q&A with Dr. Nora Volkow, who has •The Brain’s Balancing Act pioneered the use of brain imaging to 30 F aculty News study effects of drug addiction. PHOTOGRAPH: SASHA NIALLA PHOTOGRAPH: 31 A lumni News NYU PHYSICIAN SPRING 2010 1 Message from the Dean & CEO Literary Sensational Efforts Spawn a Research Pulitzer That loud yell you heard in April Less than one year ago, an extraordinary was the sound of Martin Blaser, MD, $100 million gift from the Druckenmiller chairman of the Department of Foundation was announced to establish a Medicine, from his office atB ellevue Hospital. He was expressing his delight state-of-the-art neuroscience institute at NYU at learning that a volume produced Langone Medical Center. Building on our long- by fledglingB ellevue Literary Press, standing expertise in both basic and clinical younger cousin of the Bellevue Literary neuroscience, this gift leaves the Medical Review, had just been awarded the Center well positioned to play a leading role Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. That’s right. The Pulitzer Prize for in a field expected to grow enormously in the Fiction. coming decades. The book is Tinkers, by Paul Harding, So it seems only fitting that we devoted most a meditation of sorts about an elderly of this issue of NYU Physician to research in this manifold, fascinating clock repairman dying of cancer who, field. A range of basic and clinical research is offered in these pages, in hallucinations, reconnects with his deceased father—“a powerful from captivating studies focusing on the neurological underpinnings celebration of life,” according to the of fear and on the loss of smell as a biomarker for early signs of brain Pulitzer citation. It was the literary find disease to the latest innovations in neurosurgery and brain imaging of Erika Goldman, the press’s editorial that are advancing patient care. Our researchers are also illuminating director, The manuscript had been how antidepressants physically prevent the influx of chemicals passed along to Goldman, a veteran editor who has worked at Scribner and into neurons, how experience shapes the architecture of our nerve Simon & Schuster, by a colleague at cells, and how the reemergence of a type of herpes virus can wreak another small press. “It sang out to me,” neurological havoc. Goldman recalls. Although we cannot hope to cover in any one issue the full extent The five-year-old press has its office of the significantL work in neuroscience at our Medical Center, I hope in the Department of Medicine on the sixth floor of OldB ellevue. Its mission is you will agree that these stories reflect the vibrancy of this field and “to bring together medicine, science, indeed demonstrate that “the brain is one of the last great frontiers and humanism through literature.” of medicine,” as Fiona Druckenmiller, a Medical Center trustee since From the press’s inception, NYU 2006 and a former portfolio manager at the Dreyfus Corporation, Langone Medical Center has provided has said. She and her husband, Stanley Druckenmiller, founder of it with space, services, and in-kind support, and recently, both the School Duquesne Capital Management, have endowed our neuroscience of Medicine and New York University institute, and through their generosity, our Medical Center is poised have made generous contributions. to make great strides. Its operations, however, are primarily Please stay tuned for further advances in this remarkable field of financed by foundation grants, private endeavor. donors to the Medical Center, and • revenues from book sales. “The prize will make a big difference for us,” says Jerome Lowenstein, MD, professor of medicine and the press’s DEAN & CEO ROBERT I. GROSSMAN, MD founder and publisher. He now expects more of everything—submissions, number of titles published, and financial support.B eyond that, adds Goldman, “I hope it means that when we publish a book, people will take a closer look.” • NYU PHYSICIAN 2 SPRING 2010 Around Campus Artist’s rendering add 800,000 of the new square feet to the Kimmel Pavilion facility’s patient- from East River, centered clinical (left), and from care resources, First Avenue including inpatient (below). beds, procedure rooms with clinical support, and public amenities—more than doubling the amount of space currently devoted to Plans Advance for Integrating these activities. The keystone of the plan, explains Match Suna, is that both Kimmel New Kimmel Pavilion and and Tisch will eventually contain only private rooms. While the Medical Center’s Renovated Tisch Hospital total bed count will remain relatively constant, its overall capacity will increase THE BOARDS OF TRUSTEES OF NYU LANGONE MEDICAL CENTER significantly because of gains in efficiency. and New York University recently approved a sweeping plan Private rooms will not only afford patients that will turn the north end of the Medical Center campus into an and their families more privacy and expanded and fully integrated clinical facility dedicated to acute care. eliminate gender-related issues, but also Bounded by First Avenue, 34th Street, and the FDR Drive, the site will make it easier to manage infection control. be anchored by the new Kimmel Pavilion at the north end and Tisch The facility will be designed with a Hospital, the Medical Center’s flagship clinical facility, at the south end. flexible and easily adaptable model to accommodate emerging medicine and As part of the plan, Tisch Hospital will her late husband, Martin, also a Medical technology. Reflecting the growing trend undergo an extensive makeover, thanks to Center trustee. Construction of the toward outpatient care, so-called “non- the Tisch family’s $110 million gift, made Kimmel Pavilion is targeted to begin in inpatient beds” will accommodate stays in 2008, that will enable the renovation 2013, with completion scheduled for the up to 30 hours long. Patient rooms—like program, the first phase of which is end of 2017. the new building’s procedure rooms already under way. The renovations and “The goal,” says Vicki Match Suna, and ORs—will all be standardized, yet new facilities include a new Critical Care AIA, senior vice president and vice dean adaptable for use as acute care, intensive Unit, private rooms, expanded lobby, for real estate development and facilities, care, or step-down units. and clinical pharmacy and labs. A key “is to provide one standard of care and A variety of features will make the feature of the renovation will be large one patient experience in a consistent and Kimmel Pavilion and Tisch Hospital truly Tnew elevators that will be designated for uniform environment across the Medical integrated.