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Dr. Lieff graduated from Yale College with a B.A. in mathematics, and Harvard Medical School with an M.D. He is a practicing psychiatrist, with specialties in geriatric psychiatry and neuropsychiatry. He was a pioneer in geriatric psychiatry, building some of the first geriatric medical/psychiatry hospital units, and the largest geriatric treatment network in New England, which he directed for twenty years. He is a specialist in the interface of psychiatry, neurology, and medicine.
Microbes in Animals Confound Research
While many scientists draw conclusions from research that they think is incontrovertible, in fact there are many inherent problems with current research and its conclusions. A previous post described the many issues involved in attempts to understand the brain. Another described problems with inferring how brain regions…
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Update on Inflammation and Degenerative Brain Disease
While mapping connections of neurons has become the holy grail of current neuroscience, it is clear that communication of neurons with many other types cells is, also, vitally important to every aspect of brain function. This includes constant back and forth signaling with astrocytes, microglia, oligodendrocytes, immune…
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Update on Traumatic Brain Injury and Inflammation
It has become clear that all brain processes are extremely dynamic and ever changing. Neurons alter themselves every day including elaborate reworking of the scaffolding for long axons and new dendrites. At synapses, neuroplasticity alters synapses in many different ways (see post). For many years, it was assumed that…
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Does Maternal Immune Response Cause Psychiatric Disease in Child
As effects of microbial infections on fetal brains become more apparent, questions arise whether maternal immune responses can also have damaging effects. Immune activation of the mother is called maternal immune activation or MIA. In current animal models, MIA is able to cause lifelong changes to brains of children. It…
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Update on Interface of Immunity and Brain
Both the brain and the immune system perceive infections, trauma, stress, anxiety and social isolation. Both respond to efforts to defend and heal these traumas. Many previous posts have described increasing understanding of how neither can operate without the other. They have been called the “wired and wireless…
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