Health and science briefs Oct. 25

| The New Mexican

10/25/2008 - 10/25/08

State, feds launch site for LANL data

State groups and federal agencies have launched a new Web site for members of the public who are concerned with environmental issues at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The site lets interested parties view environmental data from the lab from any personal computer. It includes information from before, during and after the Cold War.

The project is called RACER, which stands for Risk Analysis, Communication, Evaluation and Reduction. The Web site was put together by the state Environment Department, New Mexico Community Foundation, the Department of Energy and the lab.

To view the data, go to www.racernm.com.

Network gets grant over schizophrenia

The MIND Research Network in Albuquerque was chosen by the National Institutes of Health for a five-year, $11.6 million grant to study the neural mechanisms of schizophrenia.

The grant will pay for a new Center for Biomedical Research Excellence at MIND, which operates out of the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. The Biomedical Research Excellence Center will give lab scientists and clinical researchers tools and training to understand, detect, treat and prevent a wide range of diseases.

Through the grant, MIND will use several neuroimaging techniques to examine underlying brain circuits and connections associated with schizophrenia. That data will be integrated with data from psychiatric, neuropsychological and genetic testing to investigate how the disease works.