# Mentoring and neuroimaging research on new targets for DBS in OCD

> **NIH NIH K24** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2020 · $163,350

## Abstract

Abstract
I am a clinical psychiatrist by training, and neuroscientist. I have devoted my research career to understanding
mechanisms, nature and time-course of intractable psychiatric illnesses, such as obsessive compulsive
disorder (OCD). I am an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School. I serve as Director of the Center for
Morphometric Analysis, Department of Psychiatry at MGH, and as Director of Computational Imaging Anatomy
at the Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham & Women’s Hospital (BWH),
where I hold secondary appointments, at Psychiatry and Radiology, as a research scientist. I have been
conducting NIH sponsored research since 2003, when I received my first R03 award. I am currently a PI on
two NIH grants (R01, funded by NIA & NIMH; R21 funded by NCCIH) focused on understanding mechanisms
of brain development, maturation and aging through a set of neuroimaging tools and their validation in rhesus
monkeys. Those two grants together have the potential of delivering validated neuroimaging biomarkers, which
could be used to diagnose and monitor neurobiological changes due to myelin loss and neuroinflammation in
aging, and a whole list of other neuropsychiatric diseases where those changes are involved. Furthermore, I’m
a PI in a new grant (R01MH111917), which specifically focuses on retrospective investigation of imaging-
based targeting for DBS in OCD and serves as the scientific basis upon which this K24 application is hoping to
extend in depth and scope. Besides my research, I am also involved in mentoring Harvard, MIT and BU
undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows (including K23 awardees), foreign fellows, and
summer students. I am also involved in administrative work, as head of two large laboratories, at MGH and at
BWH, and various local and regional committees. Finally, I am getting involved in nonclinical and non-POR
research (through my ongoing and pending animal projects), and that takes away from both my mentoring and
my POR research. The K24 would protect time and help me to focus on most important for my career
development- mentoring (30%), further training and new POR (20%), while devoting remaining 50% to ongoing
neuroimaging research in biomarkers of white matter changes in aging and OCD.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10001008
- **Project number:** 5K24MH116366-03
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** NIKOLAOS MAKRIS
- **Activity code:** K24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $163,350
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-18 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10001008

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10001008, Mentoring and neuroimaging research on new targets for DBS in OCD (5K24MH116366-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10001008. Licensed CC0.

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