Abstract
Studies of the postmortem human brain have become an increasingly essential element of the effort to understand the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, especially in light of advances in our knowledge of functional brain circuitry and the new opportunities to apply the approaches of genomics and proteomics. This Perspective reviews some of the opportunities afforded by investigations of the postmortem human brain, and offers suggestions for improving the quality of future studies through the use of well-characterized brain specimens, well-constructed experimental designs and well-controlled confounds.
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Acknowledgements
Although the author assumes full responsibility for the content of this article, he wishes to acknowledge and thank the participants in an NIMH-sponsored workshop on “Postmortem Brain Analysis” (September 18-19, 2000; Bethesda, MD) for the open and valuable discussions that influenced his thoughts on this subject. Cited studies conducted by the author were supported by NIH grants MH45156, MH00519 and MH43784.
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Lewis, D. The Human Brain Revisited: Opportunities and Challenges in Postmortem Studies of Psychiatric Disorders. Neuropsychopharmacol 26, 143–154 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0893-133X(01)00393-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0893-133X(01)00393-1
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