Rutgers News Center

Rutgers–New Brunswick receives $2.3 million grant for major antipsychotic medications study

Rutgers has received a $2.3 million grant from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to lead a major study of use, safety, and effectiveness of antipsychotic medications.

These medications are widely used among a diverse population, including the elderly, adults, and children with such behavioral disorders as aggression and schizophrenia. Use of antipsychotic medications has increased with the advent of newer “atypical” drugs, perceived as safer than older drugs, according to principal investigator Professor Stephen Crystal of Rutgers’ Center for Health Services Research on Pharmacotherapy, Chronic Disease Management, and Outcomes.

However, as the AHRQ and FDA noted, evidence remains incomplete on safety and effectiveness of patients treated with these medications, Crystal said. Areas of particular concern include use in youth and in the elderly. Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Vanderbilt University, and Columbia University are partners in the Rutgers-led consortium.

Investigative teams will conduct three substudies using large, linked health care data sets. The first will focus on outcomes in the institutionalized elderly to examine medical outcomes, such as mortality, stroke, and myocardial infarction.

A second substudy, examining medication outcomes for children and adolescents, will combine analyses of Medicaid claims, medical charts, and electronic medical record data in Tennessee with Rutgers-based analyses of national Medicaid data. The third substudy will examine several population-wide safety issues across the age spectrum, including diabetes and outcomes for elderly people with dementia.

“The initiative by AHRQ and the FDA to fund this study represents a significant step forward in helping to provide better information on the outcomes of therapies that are used by large numbers of elderly persons, youth, and other patients,” Crystal said.

– Steve Manas

Gerald C. Harvey inducted into Rutgers Board of Governors

Gerald C. Harvey, past chair of the Board of Trustees at Rutgers, was inducted earlier this month as a trustee governor at the university’s Board of Governors meeting in Camden. His term began July 1.

Harvey, a Summit resident, is executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary of Breeze-Eastern Corp., a union-based designer and manufacturer of rescue hoists and cargo hooks for military and civilian aircraft. He is a member of the panel of commercial arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association and president of the board of trustees of St. Philip’s Academy in Newark, an independent K-8 school with a special mission for urban children.

A 1972 Rutgers College graduate, Harvey earned a law degree from Columbia University in 1975.

“We are pleased that Mr. Harvey’s longtime relationship with Rutgers will continue as a member of the university’s highest governing body,” said Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick. “We commend his selfless service to his alma mater.”

Harvey had been a member of the Rutgers Board of Trustees since 1998. He is a past president of the Rutgers University Alumni Federation and a recipient of the Federation’s Meritorious Service Award. Harvey is also a member of the Rutgers Alumni Association’s Loyal Sons and Daughters.

He and his wife, Keiko, a past member of the Rutgers Board of Trustees and Board of Governors, have funded the Keiko and Gerald Harvey Scholarship for women in engineering at the Rutgers School of Engineering.

                                                                                                                      – Steve Manas

Rutgers–Camden acquires esteemed magazine, Story Quarterly

For more than 30 years, Story Quarterly has been publishing emerging and established writers including Joyce Carol Oates and T.C. Boyle. Now, the venerated publication resides at Rutgers–Camden.

J.T. Barbarese, an associate professor of English at Rutgers–Camden, teaches poetry in the newly established master of fine arts program in creative writing and will serve as editor. Novelists Lisa Zeidner, professor of English, and Lauren Grodstein, assistant professor of English, will serve as assistant editors. Marie Hayes, who edited Story Quarterly for the past decade, will remain with the journal as senior contributing editor.

Founded in 1975, Story Quarterly began as an independent quarterly based in Illinois. Works originally published in the magazine have been selected for inclusion in the annual collections The Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize: The Best of the Small Presses, and The Best American Non-Required Reading. Acclaimed writers who have contributed to the journal include Margaret Atwood, Anne Beattie, Frederick Busch, and Jhumpa Lahiri.

As editor, Barbarese intends to continue the annual Story Quarterly format by publishing its first Rutgers–Camden hard-copy edition in early summer 2009. An online presence to be established later this month will also showcase additional new work year-round. Barbarese says the magazine will consider creative nonfiction and look to make the interview a staple feature.

Long-term funding for the publication has already been secured, thanks to Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Aregood, a 1965 Rutgers–Camden alumnus, whose donation of $50,000 will be matched by the university.

– Michael Sepanic

Rutgers researcher uncovers link between gamma wave brain activity and early development

New studies conducted by April Benasich, professor of neuroscience at Rutgers–Newark, and her colleagues reveal that gamma wave activity in the brains of children provide a window into their cognitive development, and could open the way for more effective intervention for those likely to experience language problems.

“Research into the adult brain has shown that gamma activity is the ‘glue’ that binds together perceptions, thoughts, and memories,” notes Benasich. “Little research, however, has been conducted into the development of gamma activity in the infant brain and its possible connection to cognitive and language skills.”

Benasich and her research team are the first to look at “resting” gamma power in the frontal cortex, the “thinking” part of the brain, in children 16, 24, and 36 months old. In an article published online and in an upcoming issue of Behavioral Brain Research, Benasich offers significant new insight into the likely role gamma activity plays in supporting emerging cognitive and language abilities during the first 36 months of life.

Gamma waves are fast, high-frequency, rhythmic brain responses that have been shown to spike when higher cognitive processes are engaged. Research in adults and animals suggests that lower levels of gamma power might hinder the brain’s ability to efficiently package information into coherent images, thoughts, and memories. However, until now little has been known about the developmental course of gamma power in children.

Analyzing the children’s EEGs (electroencephalograms), Benasich and her research team found that those with higher language and cognitive abilities had correspondingly higher gamma power than those with poorer language and cognitive scores. Similarly, children with better attention and inhibitory control, the ability to moderate or refrain from behavior when instructed, also had higher gamma power. There were no differences in gamma power based on gender or socioeconomic status.

– Helen Paxton