McLean Chronicle

Client:

McLean Hospital

Audience:

Donors

Goal:

Inform donors about the important research into mental illness that their contributions support

Role:

Writing

On the information highway of the human brain, the idea of an Internet is nothing new. Messages have always zipped from cell to far-flung cell. "The brain is a very connected system," explains Blaise Frederick, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in McLean's Brain Imaging Center. "Things are going on all over, and there are interrelations between them."

This complex communication network complicates the work of researchers who are trying to understand the neural disarray that manifests itself as mental illness. All too often the researchers' view of the brain is local - a hair-thin slice of postmortem tissue, a microscopic view of a single, isolated area of the brain. While this perspective is ideal for some types of studies, it is often far too narrow for those that seek to compare changes in different parts of the brain or to understand how changes in one region may affect another.