Thanks to the generosity of the Diane Goldberg Foundation, in October 2000 we created the Diane Goldberg M.I.N.D. Laboratory (the laboratory for molecular imaging of neural disorders). This superb image analysis facility has focused on postmortem brain studies. It has mapped changes in the brain in very fine detail in depression and suicide and linked changes to altered genetic function as well as developmental effects of adversity in childhood. It has also provided a tremendous reservoir of data and information that has guided the design and implementation of imaging studies in living patients in the clinic. As such, it represents a crucial component of the bi-directional relationship between basic laboratory sciences and clinical application.

A second part of the clinical application story has been the efforts we have made in developing methods for imaging neurotransmitter pathways in the brain in living patients and mapping the changes associated with major depression and suicide predisposition in an analogous fashion to the postmortem brain studies. With the recent acquisition of ever more sophisticated brain scanners, we found that our computer systems were challenged in terms of image analysis potential. The higher resolution scanners provide us with more detailed pictures of the living brain that are more comparable to those that we are able to generate in postmortem brain studies. At the same time however, these high-resolution pictures require far more computational power. Again, thanks to the philanthropy of Mr. Robert Goldberg and the Diane Goldberg Foundation, our physicists and computer experts have been able to cope with this need by building a system comprised of a 102 processor Apple computational cluster, called the Neuroscience Computer Cluster, designed for rapid execution of large computations. This will maintain Columbia University at the very forefront of developmental imaging work, both domestically and internationally.

We have, therefore, established a second division of the M.I.N.D. Laboratory for the purpose of brain imaging analysis in living patients. We are extremely enthusiastic about this new laboratory and grateful to Mr. Goldberg and the Diane Goldberg Foundation for the ongoing support they have provided for Neuroscience research.