Research

The major research focus of the CTN is to translate the neurobiological basis of the three major diseases, schizophrenia, obesity and colon cancer, from animal models to humans.

Schizophrenia

The schizophrenia research aims to investigate possible causal mechanisms of schizophrenia and to develop more effective antipsychotic drug treatments. In order to achieve these aims, there are 3 main focuses of our research: 

1. The use of animal models to investigate the role of specific genes and environmental factors on brain development, plasticity and behavior;
2. The use of human post-mortem brain tissue to establish the neurochemical changes occurring in the schizophrenia brain;
3. Investigating the mechanisms of current antipsychotic drugs and testing the potential of novel antipsychotic treatments in our animal models.

Obesity

At the CTN the obesity research aims to investigate possible causal mechanisms of obesity and to develop more effective prevention and treatments. To achieve these aims, there are 2 main focuses of our research: 

1. Using a diet-induced obesity mouse model to investigate the mechanisms of the development of obesity, particularly in the neuroendocrine regulation of food intake.
2. Searching for better strategies to prevent and treat obesity and its related metabolic disorders and implementing these strategies in both mouse models and in human trials

Colon Cancer

The main objectives of our studies linking obesity and colon cancer are: 

1. Identification of risk factors in obesity using cell culture. These risk factors could include elevated blood levels of insulin, insulin-like growth factor, leptin, Interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha and decreased blood level of adiponectin.
2. Demonstration of increased incidence of colon cancer in an animal model for obesity. We will examine if high fat diet-induced obese mice have a higher incidence of colon cancer when exposed to carcinogens.
3. Prevention of obesity-associated colon cancer risk. We will test if dietary fibre and supplementation of adiponectin could prevent obesity-associated colon cancer.