Greetings friends!
I write these greetings with particular pleasure as I have recently enjoyed time with my family that live in Canada! Our personal experiences in these rather trying times are many, but the common bond we have is the lack of personal contact with friends and relatives from afar. It is an immeasurable joy to reconnect with those we love but have only seen and heard on Zoom. For my family – it was like Christmas without the snow.
Connecting with you - my community of colleagues, friends, and the many participant collaborators in the Prechter Program with lived experience of bipolar disorder - is also one of my many joys. I love the fact that we have a Facebook presence and we are now active on twitter and other medias. Try keeping up with us! We recently hosted ENERGY: Brain Health Arts, an event that was, from my perspective, one our most successful in the history of the program. We connected with so many people and heard so many positive comments on the program. People are working hard to develop a life and work with their personal art and empower their personal energy! I feel connected and inspired, a glow that continues through today.
We are gathering momentum on many fronts and meeting regularly with colleagues around the world (thank you Zoom!) to work on collaborative programs in bipolar disorder. Teams of researchers are working together on projects regardless of their home base. BRSCr (Bipolar Research in Sleep and Circadian rhythms) launched earlier this spring and engages researchers from San Diego to Paris, all focused on the Prechter data. TRIBe (Trauman Research in Bipolar Disorder) is a collaborative driven by an enthusiastic team at Deakin University in Australia and seeks to learn more about how early childhood trauma affects those with bipolar, again using our data.
Humanity thrives on social interaction. These instincts, programmed into our DNA and perhaps our very soul, bring us together for a common vision of personal fulfillment in our endeavors. Thank you all for connecting with us and sharing your experiences and samples (a blood test, speech snippet, or any research data point is a sample!). Your personal efforts combined with the expertise of the scientists in the Prechter Program form the base of our mission.
Thank you and stay connected!
Dr. McInnis is the Principal Investigator and Scientific Director, Prechter Bipolar Research Program;
Thomas B. and Nancy Upjohn Woodworth Professor of Bipolar Disorder and Depression;
Professor of Psychiatry;Associate Director, University of Michigan Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center