Imaging in CNS Drug Discovery and Development

Background.- The Challenges and Opportunities.- Imaging of CNS Systems: Importance for Drug Development.- Imaging Approaches.- Anatomical Imaging: Volumetric Analysis.- Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Drug Development.- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Drug Development.- Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Pharmacological Systems.- Molecular Imaging: Basic Approaches.- Chemical Imaging: Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy: The Basics.- Imaging CNS Drug Action.- Animal Imaging.- Incorporating Functional MRI into Clinical Pharmacology Trials.- Imaging Placebo Responses in the Brain.- Structural Imaging of Drug Actions in Neurodegenerative Diseases.- Molecular Imaging of the CNS: Drug Actions.- Imaging CNS Disease States.- Translational MRI in CNS Drug Discovery.- In Vivo Mouse Imaging and Spectroscopy in Drug Discovery.- Neuroimaging in Understanding Chronic Pain Mechanisms and the Development of New Therapies.- Neuroimaging Human Drug Addiction.- Anxiety: Uncover Roles of Stress Related Genes by Imaging Genetics.- Imaging CNS Disease States: Alzheimer's Disease.- Brain Development and CNS Plasticity.- Imaging in CNS Disease States: PTSD.- Integrative Processes.- Integrative Processes: Neuroscience Clinical Imaging Biomarkers.- Reasons to Believe: The Potential of Imaging in CNS Drug Development.

David Borsook, MD, Ph.D., trained in medicine and neurobiology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Medical School, Johannesburg, South Africa. He graduated in 1980. Following his internship he trained in Neurology at Boston City Hospital and then was the first Pain Fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Neurology. He subsequently was the Director of the Pain Center at the Hospital from 1994 - 2004. He has completed doctoral studies in Neurobiology and later started the Pain Imaging Program in the Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2002 he led an effort to cofound a Biotech - Descartes Therapeutics Inc, with his colleague Lino Becerra Ph.D. to use imaging in drug development, where he was Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer. He currently directs an integrated imaging program - Pain & Analgesia Imaging Neuroscience (p.a.i.n.) Group at three Harvard Medical School Affiliated Hospitals, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital and Children's Hospital Boston. A component of this is a consortium of pharmaceutical and academic centers involved in the evaluation of fMRI in drug development known as ICD (Imaging Consortium for Drug Development). He has participated in a number of NIH meetings on future directions of pain research. His research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Foundations and Pharamaceutical Companies interested in the use of imaging in defining pain phenotype. He has published over 85 papers that include various aspects of pain, imaging in pain and analgesia. He is married with sons living in Concord Massachusetts.



Dr. Lino Becerra Ph.D., is Lecturer in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, he has co-appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry at McLean Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and Radiology at MGH. He's the Director of the Imaging and Analysis Group at theBrain Imaging