www.thepeninsulaqatar.com CAMPUS | 6 FASHION | 9 ENTERTAINMENT | 12 Schwier donates Westwood hails Southern cinema books to DeBakey husband as best main source for High School designer Bollywood TUESDAY 8 MARCH 2016 Email: [email protected] thepeninsulaqatar @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatar Inside a fifth-floor lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a 76-year-old neuroscientist is helping to reinvent psychiatry by hotwiring the brains of mice. MEMORY CELLS MANIPULATION P | 4-5 TUESDAY 8 MARCH 2016 | 03 CAMPUS BFIS holds Variety Show colourful Variety Show was or- institution is not merely a school but ior classes exhibiting their talent and skills dresses of the little champs, the audi- ganised at Bright Future Inter- an ideal place for students’ grooming through a fascinating performance on ence couldn’t help appreciating them. Anational School (BFIS). Students and nurturing in true letter and spirit. “Frankenstein”. ‘Respecting women’ was BFIS is a home to more than 35 nation- exhibited their talents throught enter- After recitation and principal’s ad- the theme for the Urdu play. However, this alities. Representatives from different tainment programmes. dress, the festivities of the evening start- serious topic was staged with a dose of nationalities performed their dance The audience comprised of par- ed with a note of welcome to the audi- comedy. To present a tribute to the Moth- forms followed by a vibrant and pul- ents and students. Wajid Hassan Hash- ence delivered by the Head Girl. A troupe er Earth, a colourful thematic perform- sating exhibition of multi-lingual danc- mi, Deputy Head of Mission the Paki- of students from junior wing appeared ance by the senior students added more es including English, Arabic and Pun- stan embassy was the Chief Guest. He on the stage for a captivating perform- flavours to the potpourri of the events. jabi. The School Choir marked the end shared his views on how education is a ance. The moment became more joyous Cultural Walk was another part of of the show with Qatari and Pakistani bridge to practical life proving that this and exuberant when the students of sen- the show. Starting from the gait to the National Anthems. DPS-MIS graduation day for Class Preparatory raduation day for DPS-MIS Class Preparatory was held recently. GRocky Fernandes, Director, DPS- MIS and the parents of the preparatory students atended. The ceremony began with a prayer, followed by a foot tap- ping welcome dance. Mesmerising drills and exercises which depicted the sun and the rainbow was performed by the students. Children wearing their grad- uation gowns and caps marched on to the stage. Teachers congratulated the students and wished them success for their future. It was a moment of pride for all the parents to see the confidence of their little ones. The programme was organised under the guidance of Princi- pal Asna Nafees and the Vice-Principal G Mala. Preparatory students and Beena Mohan, Academic Coordinator, anchored the programme. Vimmi Sharma, Activity Coordinator, proposed a vote of thanks. 04 | TUESDAY 8 MARCH 2016 COVER STORY A scientist hotwiring brain to treat depression By Amy Ellis Nutt physiological signs of mental diseas- Medicine, who developed the test. The Washington Post es and disorders: the biomarkers, or The need has never been more concrete measurements of mental ill- acute. Depression is already the ness that many expect will move the leading cause of disability on the field into the 21st century. After four planet, affecting 350 million people of nside a fifth-floor lab at the Mas- decades of virtually no major advanc- all ages, according to the World Health sachusetts Institute of Technolo- es in the treatment of mental illness, Organisation. Despite its prevalence, gy, a 76-year-old neuroscientist is a profound shift was imperative, Insel the disorder is extremely difficult to Ihelping to reinvent psychiatry by thought. study because it is so variable — which hotwiring the brains of mice. There have already been small but is why genetic research has so often Susumu Tonegawa has figured out significant successes in identifying failed. One psychiatrist likens it to how to reverse symptoms of depres- depression biomarkers. Scientists at looking for the genetic risk factors for sion in moody male rodents by reacti- Duke University found that the stress fever. vating the happy memories they creat- response of the amygdala, an almond- Medication and psychotherapy ed days earlier during a bit of frolicking shaped structure in the brain that is remain the first-line treatments with female mice. He injects a modi- linked to fear and pleasure, can predict for major depression, though fied, light-sensitive gene into those a person’s vulnerability to developing they help less than 40 percent of happy-memory cells, then uses fibre depression as much as four years in- patients achieve remission of their optics to switch on the memories with to the future. symptoms. The state of the art in a stream of blue light. The depressed And Northwestern University psychopharmacology remains the mice perk up in seconds. When he researchers were able to pinpoint selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, turns the light off, their lethargy rap- 11 genetic blood markers that drugs such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft, idly returns. Another flip of the switch, distinguished teenagers who were which were first patented nearly 50 and they’re active again. depressed from those who weren’t. years ago. These SSRIs target the “We cured their depression,” he Then in 2014, a Northwestern neurochemicals that carry information says. neurobiologist used molecular markers between neurons in the brain, but no Tonegawa’s approach in creating in RNA — the messengers that carry out one knows exactly how or why they and manipulating memory cells has the DNA’s instructions — to develop a work, and because the medications drawn praise from a normally staid ac- blood test for depression in adults that can’t lock in on specific neurons or ademic community. Beyond those in- would confirm a physiological basis for regions of gray matter, they are more stitutional confines, the potential of patients’ symptoms. blunt instrument than precision tool. a radical new tool to treat one of the “The thinking is changing as the That shortcoming is one major most complex mental illnesses could technology changes.... This test reason why scientists have shifted be a game-changer in psychiatry. brings mental health diagnosis into from neurochemicals to neurocircuits — This is where Thomas Insel, the the 21st century and offers the first the networks of cells that are activated former director of the National Insti- personalized medicine approach to every time we think, feel or move - to tute of Mental Health, hoped to push people suffering from depression,” unravel the mysteries of depression. scientists when he announced in 2013 said Eva Redei, a professor of At MIT, where he directs the Center that the agency was refocusing its re- psychiatry and behavioural sciences for Neural Circuit Genetics, Tonegawa search to intensify the hunt for the at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of was ready. TUESDAY 8 MARCH 2016 | 05 COVER STORY Because he had trained as a molecular biolo- of the invasiveness of fiber optics, Tonegawa says He became especially interested in patients’ emo- gist, he already had a leg up on traditional neuro- it is merely an “engineering problem.” In the not- tional suffering, a major reason why he turned to scientists. Because he was used to crossing disci- too-distant future, he foresees a fast-acting treat- neuropsychopharmacology, ultimately focusing on plines — in 1987 he won the Nobel Prize in Phys- ment, with fewer of the side effects of current treatment-resistant depression. iology or Medicine for lifting the veil on antibody medications. One theory of depression is that it is a met- diversity — he already had the creativity neces- “People are working on this,” he said. “Others abolic disorder, an underfunctioning of the cel- sary for discoveries. And because he continues to are using nanotechnology to try and activate the lular process by which complex molecules are battle his own depression since the suicide of his cells from outside the brain. It’s difficult, but I think broken down to produce the energy needed to teenage son more than four years ago, he under- this will be overcome.” maintain life. Some research has found that a de- stands better than most the importance of his po- On the other side of the Charles River from Ton- pressed brain’s metabolism appears to be out of tential breakthrough. egawa, a 44-year-old physician-scientist named whack, storing energy instead of using it. How to “My interests are very narrow now,” he admits. “I Paolo Cassano is also working on depression on unlock that became Cassano’s mission. He knew can’t enjoy many things.” the cellular level. His work, the first clinical trial of that near-infrared light — closest on the spectrum It was perhaps inevitable that Tonegawa’s re- its kind, could similarly revolutionise patient treat- to visible light — had been successfully tested on search in memory would lead him to this current ment — not in a few years, but right now. the brains of stroke patients and had helped to re- work. Over the past four years, he and his lab have Like Tonegawa, Cassano came to psychiatric re- store function. At low levels, working in a similar shown that the physical traces of memories are not search in a roundabout fashion, through an infec- way, it had been approved by the Food and Drug stored in the synapses, or connections, between tious disease fellowship early in the AIDS epidemic. Administration for certain kinds of pain relief.