10 October 2024, 1:00PM MST
Cannabis and driving: knowns and known unknowns
Dr. Pearlson’s medical training was at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England. Following internship he completed a graduate degree in philosophy at Columbia University in New York and was then successively a resident, postdoctoral fellow and faculty member at Johns Hopkins University department of Psychiatry for many years, (1976-2002) under Dr. Paul McHugh, where he was ultimately a professor of Psychiatry and founding director of the Division of Psychiatry Neuroimaging. He also trained with Dr. Marion Fischman in safe administration of abused substances to research volunteers in the clinical laboratory.
Dr. Pearlson is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Yale University Medical School & founding director of the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center (www.NRC-IOL.org) and the director of research, at the Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital in Hartford CT.
The ONRC is a 50+ -person organization containing 4 component labs specializing in applying brain imaging and electrophysiological techniques to a broad variety of neuropsychiatric conditions, including dementias, mood disorders, substance abuse disorders, PTSD, autism all and schizophrenia, including illnesses occurring from childhood to old age. Features of the ONRC include 2 research-dedicated 3-Tesla MRI scanners and a fully equipped electrophysiological laboratory. The Center scans over a thousand individuals annually, all of whom are genotyped. It specializes in the importation of virtual reality (VR) paradigms into the functional MRI environment to produce ecologically valid “virtual environments” to study complex behaviors in the scanner such as automobile driving.
Dr. Pearlson’s research uses neuroimaging as a tool to address a broad array of questions regarding the neurobiology of major mental disorders, primarily psychosis (B-SNIP Consortium) and substance use/abuse.
Outside of his active psychosis investigations, important “firsts” in his research include exploring complex behaviors in the MRI scanner (for example simulated driving) to explore disruptive effects of abused substances and the first demonstration of human in-vivo cocaine-mediated dopamine release using PET ligands. He was also the principal investigator of the longitudinal Brain and Alcohol Research on College Students (BARCS) study that used neuroimaging and genetics to identify freshman students who were at risk for alcohol and substance abuse, and to document consequences of cannabis smoking and alcohol use over two years on brain and academic outcome measures in 2000 Connecticut freshmen. He is also interested in questions regarding cannabis and aging.
Dr. Pearlson is an NIMH MERIT awardee and holds multiple RO1 grants from NIDA, NHTSA, NIAAA and NIMH. He has been awarded the American College of Psychiatry’s Stanley Dean Award for schizophrenia research, a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award, the Ziskind-Sommerfeld Research Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry, the Albert M. Biele Lectureship from Jefferson Medical College, a Michael Visiting Professorship from the Weizmann Institute and is on the editorial board of several psychiatry journals. He was a member of the APA’s expert panel. He has published ~950 peer-reviewed research articles, with an overall H-index of 144.
He is also co-founder of the annual BrainDance Competition, which is open to high school and college students across New England. The BrainDance Awards encourage students to gain knowledge about psychiatric diseases through creative arts projects and to develop a more tolerant and realistic perspective toward people with severe psychiatric problems.
Dr. Pearlson is author of the popular science book The Science of Weed, to be published by Johns Hopkins University press in November 2024- see godfreypearlson.com