About JBRF

The Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation is the first charitable organization solely dedicated to the support of research for the study of early-onset bipolar disorder. Our board is a remarkable one, made up of dedicated parents, treating professionals and world class clinical investigators and basic science researchers.

JBRF has organized a consortium of collaborating research groups and individual investigators from a number of medical schools and treatment centers including the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and SUNY-Syracuse, and will continue to establish collaborations with researchers from other centers around the world to further the goals of the foundation.

This scientific and clinical team is organized around a common research aim: to determine the etiology of juvenile-onset bipolar disorder, and thereby advance the state of knowledge about this condition so that more effective treatments can be developed.

There are six areas of study towards which research efforts will be directed:

Clinical Phenomenology - Diagnosis and Temperamental Features
Neuropsychology - Cognitive deficits/neural circuits
Neuroimaging - Activation paradigms for fMRI studies of fronto-striatal pathways
Neuroendocrinology - Hormonal and neuropeptide markers/circadian rhythms
Chronobiology – Circadian and ultradian rest/activity, thermoregulatory, sleep propensity rhythms
Molecular Genetics - Candidate gene studies

To further unite and strengthen this unique effort at
interdisciplinary and inter-university collaboration, the board of JBRF is sponsoring a fellowship program that will provide an important link between research studies and clinical work, and will further the training and diagnostic skills of young psychiatrists and psychologists interested in developing expertise in the diagnosis of childhood-onset bipolar disorder.

To enhance and facilitate professional dialogue on the subject of juvenile-onset bipolar disorder, the JBRF is sponsoring on-line professional listservs to provide physicians (psychiatrists, pediatricians, child and developmental neurologists) and psychologists, neuropsychologists, and therapists with an opportunity to participate in online discussions of treatment, share information and clinical experience, as well as to ask for and give advice and consultation on the treatment of children with juvenile-onset bipolar disorder and its comorbidities.

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