The Mind Research Network

The Mind Research Network (MRN) was founded in 1998 as a result of the vision of United States Senator Pete Domenici to establish a leading brain research facility to be based in New Mexico. MRN’s initial plan called for the research and development of state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging and magnetoencephalogram neuroimaging systems in the studies of mental illness and brain disorders. This important task was carried out by MRN and its collaborators at Harvard University, MIT, the University of Minnesota, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of New Mexico.

While still referred to as the MIND (Mental Illness and Neuroscience Discovery) Institute, the organization moved to their current location in the Pete & Nancy Domenici Hall on the University of New Mexico campus in 2004. Their name change to MRN was completed in the fall of 2007.

Headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, MRN consists of an interdisciplinary association of scientists located at universities, national laboratories and research centers around the world and is focused on imaging technology and its emergence as an integral element of neuroscience investigation.

MRN is 501(c)3 non-profit funded through major grants from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, private foundations, collaborative partners and individual donors.

Mission statement

The Mind Research Network is dedicated to the discovery and advancement of clinical solutions for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and brain disorders.

Research

Since 1998, MRN has evolved into a multi-million dollar organization whose research mission has expanded to include addiction, autism, psychopathy, creativity, dementia, traumatic brain injury, and schizophrenia. A sampling of MRN’s research is described below.

Schizophrenia: MRN is addressing this severe mental illness through the following separate, but interconnected research programs:

Psychopathy: Understanding the mental processes behind illegal behavior is the first step in providing better therapy for inmates, which will help reduce recidivism rates and decrease the cost of criminal behavior to society. This research utilizes MRN’s one-of-a-kind mobile MRI unit, which is driven from site to site and located inside the grounds of adult correctional facilities and juvenile detention centers.

Traumatic Brain Injury: TBI has been described as a “hallmark injury” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Diagnosis of traumatic brain injury is complicated by the lack of truly objective criteria. Current clinical tools lack the sensitivity to accurately diagnose these injuries. However, MRN’s research is currently utilizing newer neuroimaging techniques to investigate the neuropathalogy of acute mild to moderate TBI and the subsequent recovery of function in this population.

Positive Neuroscience: The positive neuroscience initiative was created to bring to light individual differences in aspects of human behavior that provide positive benefits to society, as related to:

Neurodevelopment: The neurodevelopment initiative was developed to optimize the use of the unique babySQUID MEG system in order to develop sensitive measures of brain dysfunction early in life and to provide appropriate and early intervention. It is currently being used to identify:

External links

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