[Seminar] Our mind: systemic control of the brain by Dr. Akira Sawa( Johns Hopkins University )

Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Akira Sawa is the director of the Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Center; Professor of psychiatry, neuroscience, biomedical engineering, genetic medicine, and pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Professor of mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

He graduated from University of Tokyo and was received M.D. in 1990. He worked in University of Tokyo Hospital (psychiatry) until 1996 and then moved to Johns Hopkins to learn research in neuroscience under Prof. Solomon H. Snyder in 1997. He started his Johns Hopkins career as a tenure-track faculty member in 2002. Since 2012, he has served as the Director and Innovation Chair of the Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Center. The Center focuses on patient care, research, education and public outreach for psychotic disorders and severe mental disorders. Accordingly, Sawa’s goal is to integrate the frontline science with daily patient care in an effective manner. 

He has maintained federal center grants over the decade, leading multidisciplinary clinical/translational projects to address mechanistic questions for major mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, mood disorders and Alzheimer’s disease, with a particular emphasis on early detection and early intervention of these conditions. He was elected as a fellow to the Association of American Physicians in 2020, and as an AAAS fellow in 2024. He has also served for multiple academic societies and clinical charities as an advisory board, council member, and fellow in the US and UK. He maintains multiple patents, with which the process for clinical trial is under way.

Abstract

Our mind: systemic control of the brain

Akira Sawa, MD

Director and Innovation Chair, Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Center

Director, Johns Hopkins iMIND

Professor, Psychiatry, Mental Health, Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, Pharmacology, and Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University and Hospital

Many patients with psychiatric conditions show co-morbid physical changes, including metabolic dysfunction. Epidemiological studies have indicated that the average life span of patients with schizophrenia (SZ) is about 20 years shorter than the general population. This premature death is a major medical feature of SZ. In this talk, I will present two studies that address the systemic nature of neuropsychiatric diseases from clinical and basic science viewpoints, respectively.

The first study I present is an examination of the Danish Health Registry, through which we addressed the relationship between diabetes and major psychiatric conditions such as SZ and bipolar disorder (BP). From such a population study, we also examined biopsied neuronal cells of SZ and BP patients from their nasal cavities at the molecular levels. The goal of this study is to obtain a clue of the brain-body relationship from clinical viewpoints.

The second study I present is a more basic science investigation of pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy (PDE). This is a rare genetic disorder caused by a loss-of-function mutation in the Aldehyde dehydrogenase 7A1 (ALDH7A1) gene. This condition includes both epilepsy and psychiatric changes, but the mechanism of whereby this gene mutation leads to difference types of neuropsychiatric manifestations remains to be elucidated. ALDH7A1 is expressed in both brain and body, such as liver and kidney. I will present the data by using tissue-specific genetic knockout of this gene. The goal of this second study is to obtain a clue of the brain-body relationship from basic science viewpoints.

Taken together, I will discuss the future perspectives of clinical neuroscience, in particular psychiatry and neuropsychiatry as a physician scientist in psychiatry.