Dr. Tyrone Cannon

I am proud to have known and worked with Dr. Ty Cannon over the years IMHRO has funded his research. His investigations are so creative, solid, and useful, and his low-key way with people so appealing, it is no wonder that he has led amazing discoveries as head of two facilities at UCLA: The Staglin Music Festival Center for the Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States (CAPPS) and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. And, he is lead scientist of an 8-facility consortium called NAPLS, or North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study, which studies how to predict whether people at risk for developing psychosis (people in the prodrome) actually are headed for a psychotic break, so that they can be treated before it happens and bypass years of disability. In 2008 the National Institute for Mental Health awarded NAPLS a $23 million grant to conduct its five-year study, which aims to not only hone doctors’ accuracy in predicting a psychotic break to 80% or greater, but to develop safe, effective therapies for people in the prodrome. Clearly, Dr. Cannon has not just a razor-sharp mind, but also a big heart.

BKS: Ty, you got your PhD in Psychology, specifically Clinical Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Genetics, in 1990. You’ve been doing mental health research for at least 20 years. What interested you to get involved in this field in the first place? Do you have any words for young people who would like to work in the field?

TC: From my earliest childhood memories I was always fascinated by the question of why people think and act in the ways they do and especially by the question of why different people think and act differently from each other.  So maybe I am just “hard-wired” to be interested in human psychology.  Then I had some experiences with people suffering from psychiatric disorders – initially in my family and then among my friends in high school and college.  As I learned about genetics and the brain in my formal education, I realized that there are very powerful methods and approaches we can take to find out the causes and to develop treatments for these conditions.  We don’t just have to wonder about and develop theories of such things, we can actually conduct studies and test out our ideas to see if they are true.  I found the process of scientific discovery to be exhilarating, and I was hooked!  As I began graduate school working with my mentor Sarnoff Mednick on the causes of schizophrenia, I felt I had found a life mission that would keep me full of passion and energy – a prediction that continues to be a borne out for me today.  To the young people considering a career in research on mental disorders, I would say, by all means, jump in!  This is a very exciting time of discovery in this field and you can make a huge difference in people’s lives through your work.  I would encourage you to approach these issues from multiple perspectives, including molecular biology, genomics, systems neuroscience, and psychology.  These days one needs background in all of these fields to tackle problems as complex and intricate as the causes of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.

BKS: You received your first grant from IMHRO, then called the Staglin Music Festival for Mental Health, in 1999. Since then you’ve started to make exciting discoveries in using neuroimaging to find potential biomarkers to predict psychosis onset. In fact, in 2008 you found a potential “near perfect predictor of psychosis onset” in a small MRI scan study involving clients at CAPPS. What inspired you to pursue neuroimaging as a technique for this goal, and how confident were you that it would lead you this far?

TC: I think about it this way.  How does the ‘brain’ support the ‘mind’?  By ‘mind’ I don’t mean ‘spirit’ – I think we should keep such religious/cosmological questions separate from the scientific study of what I like to call the ‘mind-brain continuum.’  Humans have evolved such a fascinating armamentarium of mental phenomena, including such things as language, imagery, a sense of self, and the ability to willfully guide our own behavior.  Brain imaging is one of the key methods that helps us study the junction of the mind and brain – it lets us examine the physical systems that are required for our experience of such a rich psychological repertoire.  And it has become a key method in describing how brain systems become dysfunctional in people with or at risk for mental disorders.  I believe brain imaging carries a lot of promise in helping us to figure out how brain systems may go awry and how to correct or compensate for these changes – but only in combination with other critical approaches including genomics and animal models.  This is because each approach has its strengths and weaknesses as a window into the causes of mental disorders.  We’ll only make substantial progress if we can successfully integrate all of these approaches.

BKS: Now, building on the success you and NAPLS have had so far, your goal for both predictive power and sensitivity is 80%. That could be a breathtaking achievement that would change the way mental health care is conducted. How does it feel to be involved in such a potentially game-changing enterprise?

TC: I wake up every day with a full head of steam, eager to get to the place where our scientific work leads to a sea-change in health services and a major improvement in quality of life for millions of people.  My colleagues and I in the NAPLS project are doing something on a scale that has never before been attempted – developing a prediction algorithm for psychosis that could be applied to detect people who will later go on to develop serious mental illness using objective biological and psychological tests, including imaging, genomics, and cognitive testing.  If we can detect such people early, before the underlying biological processes have ‘taken root,’ we will have a much better chance of preventing the onset of full disorders and the compromises in functioning – at work, school, and socially – that often accompany these disorders.

BKS: Meanwhile, what new means to actually treat prodromal psychosis are you and the NAPLS team looking into?

TC: It is important to identify what we do understand and what we don’t.  What we think we can do now is prevent some of the functional disability associated with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia through early intervention using psychological therapies.  We are testing a family-based psychological treatment approach with this goal in mind, supported in part by funds from the Obama stimulus package for NIH and in part by funds raised by IMHRO for the UCLA Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.  I don’t think we know yet how to prevent psychosis per se, but we have some interesting leads, based on the idea that there is a problem in the plasticity of brain cells in people who develop schizophrenia.  We are many years away from clinical trials testing interventions that improve plasticity in the prevention of these disorders, but there are some exciting animal models where proof of principle findings are beginning to emerge.

BKS: If you could say one thing to spread hope for young people who are at risk for developing psychosis, what would it be?

TC: I think the main message is this:  While life may be more challenging for you than for others you know, this does not mean it can’t be as enjoyable and fulfilling for you in the long run.  I really admire those who refuse to be a victim and who turn their own adversity into a positive (people like you, Brandon!).  My advice is based on that principle.  Understand that your vulnerability makes you more reactive to stress and try to limit your exposure to things that really push you over the edge, but at the same time, stay engaged in life – keep your connections with friends and family, stay interested in your hobbies, stay committed to completing your education.  Understand your strengths and weaknesses and continue to develop and refine goals for your life based on this.  These are the activities that help to create and maintain a sense of meaning and purpose and they are always available to you.

BKS: Ty, thank you very much!