Professor Gregory McCarthy

Clinical Neuroscience

Clinical issues have been an enduring motive for our research. This work started in the mid-90s as part of our focus on the human hippocampus. Our direct electrophysiological recordings from the human hippocampus revealed a relationship between decision-related EEG potentials and hippocampal cell density as measured in surgically excised tissues. We then demonstrated that MRI could be used to measure the volume of the hippocampus in epilepsy patients, and that hippocampal volume predicted both pathology memory performance. Our work then shifted to the hippocampi of individuals suffering from posttraumatic stress disorders. In a collaborative study, we demonstrated for the first time that hippocampal volumes were reduced in individuals with PTSD and, again, that these volume changes were related to memory deficits.

 

Our work in this area is now undertaken in collaboration with Dr. Raj Morey at the Duke University Medical School and VISN 6 MIRECC. We utilize functional MRI, drug challenges, diffusion tensor imaging, neuropsychological testing, and genetics. In one recent study, we demonstrated structural anatomical changes in the amygdala in individuals with PTSD compared to a control cohort of individuals with trauma exposure but no PTSD.

 

 

Sample publications

 

Morey RA, Gold AL, Labar KS, Beall SK, Brown VM, Haswell CC, Nasser JD, Wagner HR, McCarthy G, for the Mid-Atlantic MIRECC Workgroup (2012) Amygdala Volume Changes in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in a Large Case-Controlled Veterans Group. Arch Gen Psychiatry 69:1169-1178.

Morey RA, Haswell CC, Selgrade ES, Massoglia D, Liu C, Weiner J, Marx CE, Cernak I, McCarthy G, MIRECC Work Group (2012) Effects of chronic mild traumatic brain injury on white matter integrity in Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. Human Brain Mapping.