Michael F Green, PhD

Fall 2003

Archived Profiles

Michael Foster Green, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Director of the Treatment Unit of the VISN 22 MIRECC. Dr. Green obtained his B.A. in psychobiology at Oberlin College, his Ph.D. in neuropsychology at Cornell University, and did his postdoctoral training in neuropsychology at UCLA. His research activities are devoted to understanding the nature and implications of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia, including neurocognitive indicators of genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia and neural mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction. His laboratory explores the relationship between cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and activities of daily living, and the neurocognitive effects of antipsychotic and adjunctive medications. Dr. Green has authored over 120 journal articles and written two books: Schizophrenia from a Neurocognitive Perspective: Probing the Impenetrable Darkness, published in 1998, and Schizophrenia Revealed: From Neurons to Social Interactions, published in 2001. Dr. Green is currently president of the Society for Research in Psychopathology and is on the editorial boards of Schizophrenia Research, Schizophrenia Bulletin and Cognitive Neuropsychiatry.

Dr. Green is married and has two daughters. His hobbies include running, skiing, backpacking, traveling with his family, and especially bike riding with his youngest daughter, age 2.

What attracted you to the study of schizophrenia?

I was trained as a neuropsychologist and have been interested in schizophrenia ever since I was an undergraduate. When I arrived at Cornell for graduate school, Dr. Elaine Walker, who was my advisor, was starting a research program on schizophrenia. Having an opportunity to work with Dr. Walker cemented my interest in schizophrenia. While working with persons with schizophrenia, I was struck by the gravity of the illness and the toll it took on individuals and families. It was also clear to me that any progress in the understanding of schizophrenia would come through approaching it as a disease of the brain, something that is so obvious now, but was not obvious at that time. It took no imagination on my part to study schizophrenia as a cognitive disorder; I was being trained in neuropsychology, so it was naturally the way I viewed schizophrenia.

What is meant by social cognition and why has it become so important lately?

Social cognition refers to the interplay between cognition and social behavior. It includes the mental operations that underlie social interactions, including perceiving and interpreting, the intentions of others. One reason why this area has generated so much interest lately is that it has become increasingly clear that social cognition is closely related to a person's success in the community, especially in their degree of success in getting a job and in living independently.

How will cognition-enhancing drugs be expected to help schizophrenic patients with their functioning?

Improving cognition by itself will not yield the types of gains in the community that we are all hoping for. The gains will only occur if improvement in cognition is accompanied by opportunities for the person to learn. Most likely, this will involve access to rehabilitation and a chance to learn skills that will help patients function in the community. One of the most interesting by-products of the increased interest in cognition-enhancing drugs is that a successful outcome will require more focus on psychosocial interventions; otherwise there will be no opportunity for functional gains.