Institute | IPR History
History of the Institute of Psychiatric Research
One-half century ago the State of Indiana, Department of Mental Health and the Indiana University School of Medicine made a commitment to the citizens of Indiana to provide a facility dedicated to pioneering research efforts directed to answering the most difficult questions regarding mental diseases and behavioral disorders. The Institute of Psychiatric Research was founded with the mission of fostering multidisciplinary research in basic and applied biological psychiatry and the neurosciences involving gifted researchers in the areas of psychiatry, neurochemistry, neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, genetics and psychology. In addition to its research mission the IPR was designed to function as a graduate educational center for the training of psychiatry residents and graduate students, who would go on to careers investigating the underlying mechanisms of mental illness, a major cause of hospitalization and societal and interpersonal problems in the United States. When psychodynamic concepts were still a dominant influence in psychiatry and psychology, an institute devoted to biological psychiatry research was at the cutting edge of medical investigation in the USA. At the time of its inception this was a unique concept of research strategy and was one of the few such facilities in the country. Today it is among a handful of such institutions still functioning with perhaps the longest history of multi-disciplinary basic and clinical research on the causes of mental illness.
The concept of the Institute was the brain child of an inspired leader, Dr. Margaret Morgan, then Commissioner of Mental Health for the State of Indiana. She showed great foresight and wisdom in recognizing the urgent need for a sound research base for the Dept. of Psychiatry, and began planning for the establishment of the Institute of Psychiatric Research in 1954. IPR now stands as a monument to her vision. Realizing the necessity for broad community, academic and state support, Dr. Morgan recruited a very impressive group of able business, community and professional leaders as well as academic colleagues such as Herman Wells, President of Indiana University, and John Van Nuys, Dean of the IU School of Medicine. The original Board of Directors included state and national leaders such as Mrs. Albert Lasker, President of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation of New York City; Homer Hargrave, Director of the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry; James Adams, member of Board of Directors of Libby-Owens-Ford Glass Company; Mrs. Oscar Ahlgren, assistant to the National Director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Savings Bond Division; and J. Irwin Miller, Chairman of the Board of Cummins Engine Company and Irwin Union Bank and Trust, just to name a few examples. With the strong and enthusiastic backing of Governor George Craig, in a short time Dr. Morgan succeeded in raising the necessary funds to make possible the construction of the new Institute, which activity began in 1955.
Its modern design was to be 4-story brick, glass and limestone structure containing over 50,000 sq. feet of laboratory and office space, a conference/seminar room along with additional support areas including a cold room, glassware room, mechanical and electronic shops, a loading dock and utility areas. The total cost of the building and laboratories was to be approximately $300,000.00, a huge investment considering that the total Federal mental health research budget in 1956 was less than 8 million dollars!
As key to the success of this fledgling institute was the appointment of Dr. John Nurnberger, Sr., recently of the Institute of Living of Hartford Connecticut and Yale University’s Dept. of Psychiatry. He was recruited in 1956 for the dual positions of Chairman of the Dept. of Psychiatry and Director of the Institute of Psychiatric Research. He shared the vision of bringing together scientists from various disciplines, both clinical and basic researchers, to solve the perplexing problems of the major mental illnesses. He was a charter member of the newly formed National Society for Biological Psychiatry. Soon six full-time faculty joined the staff. These included Dr. Morris Aprison, principal investigator in Biochemistry; Dr. Harvard Armus, research associate in experimental psychology; Dr. A.L. Drew, Chief of Pediatric Neurology and Associate Director of IPR with research interests in neurobiology and genetics; Dr. Hanus Grosz, senior research fellow in clinical psychiatry; Dr. Harold Persky, principal investigator in clinical biochemistry; Dr. Marvin Zuckerman, research associate in clinical psychiatry; and Dr. Charles Ferster, principal investigator in behavioral analysis. Dr. Marian DeMyer was one of the initial clinical consultants and research collaborators. A staff of approximately 25 technical, administrative and maintenance personnel provided essential support for the ongoing research. Fulfilling its educational mission from its very first year, IPR also served as a training ground for almost two dozen graduate students and residents in psychiatry.
By the end of its first year, over 40 papers, chapters and books were published by the faculty of IPR. The next four years saw a significant increase in faculty and supportive staff with the addition of other areas of research including social psychology, physiological psychology, neurophysiology and neurology, biostatistics and added faculty in experimental psychology, psychiatry and biochemistry. During this first five-year period at least 40-50 papers, chapters and books appeared each year as well as dozens of presentations at national and international meetings. Scientists from around the world were brought in on a regular basis to present seminars to faculty and students. The Institute was considered one of the major early centers for biological psychiatry research in the USA.
Although the research efforts of the entire multi-disciplinary Institute faculty expanded exponentially over the next decades, each decade can be identified by one major research contribution. In addition to the great variety of ongoing research, each decade has been characterized by a certain research emphasis with which the IPR has achieved fame. This is not to diminish all the other important research that has been conducted, but merely to select one specific type of research for that period.
The decade of the 1960s is known for the discovery of glycine as a neurotransmitter and the development of criteria for neurotransmitter candidates. Morris Aprison and his collaborators are universally recognized for this important breakthrough in their pioneering work with neurotransmitters.
The decade of the 1970s was characterized by the development of the serotonin hypothesis of depression using animal models of serotonerigic receptor sensitivity. Dr. Aprison and his colleagues were responsible for performing some of the earliest studies of neurochemical correlates of learned behaviors in which they were able to identify serotonin’s role in animal models of depression, and hypothesize regarding its role in certain types of human depression.
In the 1980s Dr. William McBride’s group was responsible for the exciting upsurge in neurochemical and behavioral studies of special lines of rats which were alcohol preferring or non-preferring. These studies paved the way for developing critical criteria for an animal model of alcoholism and elucidating the roles of various neurotransmitters in its etiology.
The genetics of psychiatric disorders characterized the research emphasis of the 1990s. Under Dr. John Nurnberger Jr’s leadership collaborative genetic studies of bipolar illness and alcohol dependence were initiated as part of a large NIMH project. A Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies was also developed and translated into six languages, becoming the standard for NIMH genetic studies. Also important during this decade was the pioneering work on the brain mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease conducted in Debomoy Lahiri’s laboratories. The studies of Anantha Shekhar’s group in developing animal models of anxiety to elucidate neruochemical mechanisms and pathways of this disorder were also pioneering works.
Education has always been a critical mission of IPR. Its faculty has actively participated in medical school as well as graduate school courses and medical residency training programs. In addition, the Institute’s reputation acted as a magnet drawing postdoctoral fellows from around the world. Over 100 postdoctoral fellows sought their training at IPR and came from China, Japan, Korea, Canada, Italy, Germany, Poland, Great Britain, Greece, etc. as well as dozens of states within our own country
Two measures of the success of a research institute are the external monies generated by the ongoing research and the publication record of its faculty. At this mid-century point in its history over 80 million dollars have been received to fund the various ongoing IPR and collaborative programs. Also in the last 50 years over 2,500 papers, chapters and books have been published by IPR members. These have appeared in the most prestigious scientific journals as well as in professional textbooks. From its earliest years, IPR has been and is the home to editors of national and international scientific journals.
The Institute was also instrumental in initiating, along with the Indiana Mental Health Association, annual meetings now in their eighth year focusing on major issues facing mental health in Indiana. These include presentations by invited nationally known mental health speakers as well as individual workshops on a wide range of topics in mental health.
Over its 50 year history, the IPR has seen only four directors, each having put his own stamp on the success of the Institute’s mission. When Dr. Nurnberger, Sr. stepped down as Director in 1974, Dr. Aprison was appointed Director and served in this role until 1978. He was succeeded by Hugh Hendrie, who was also Chairman of the Dept. of Psychiatry. Dr. Hendrie led a multi-disciplinary group conducting international comparative studies of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in the USA and Nigeria. In 1986 John Nurnberger, Jr. came from the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington DC to take on the mantle of Director, especially fitting in view of his father’s accomplishments as Director in the early years of IPR.
It has often been said that we must celebrate our past to allow us to better focus on our plans for the future. The present accomplishments and future outlook for IPR is even more exciting than our impressive past. Because of the brevity of this history of IPR, it was necessary to leave out names of dozens of faculty researchers, graduate students, residents and research technicians, all who have made significant contributions to the advancement of our knowledge of biological psychiatry, as well as those of the supportive staff (shop technicians, secretaries, administrative assistants, etc.), without whose efforts none of these accomplishments would have been possible.
