Doctor of medical sciences, professor Diana Dmitrievna Orlovskaya is a Deputy Director on Science of the MHRC RAMS.

The Mental Health Research Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences is the leading scientific psychiatric institution in Russia. The development of important theoretical and practical issues of modern clinical and biological psychiatry is carried out in the Center. These problems embrace endogenous mental disorders (schizophrenia, depressions, etc.), borderline mental disorders, including somatogenic and psychosomatic ones, gerontopsychiatric pathology (Alzheimer's disease, mental disorders of late age), mental disorders in children (autism, schizophrenia with an onset in childhood, some forms of mental retardation). The Mental Health Research Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences also conducts research in connection with problems of mental health services.

The Centre is headed by the Board of Directors, the scientific part of which includes the Director, Deputy Director on Science, and a Scientific Secretary.

The Director of the Centre - the Academician of RAMS Alexander Sergeevich Tiganov.

A.S. Tiganov is one of the leading national scientists, widely known in the country and abroad by his works in the field of theoretical and clinical psychiatry, psychopathology, psychopharmacology and medical postgraduate training. He is an author of more than 200 scientific papers, 2 monographs, a co-author of several editions of the Handbook and Textbook on Psychiatry. He edited and directly contributed to 2 volumes of the Handbook of Psychiatry, published in 1999, that summarized and up-date achievements in the field of systematization, diagnostics, pathogenesis and treatment of mental disorders. A.S. Tiganov is a scientific supervisor of 25 PhD's and doctoral theses (Candidates and doctors of medical sciences).

Under the leadership of A.S. Tiganov, the best traditions of national psychiatry are carefully preserved and fruitfully developed in the MHRC RAMS. A.S. Tiganov's scientific interests include a wide spectrum of clinical-biological research concerning the ethiology, pathogenesis-clinical and psychopathological characteristics of schizophrenia end affective disorders, including depression end psychopharmacotherapy. A.S. Tiganov and his progenies have established a theoretical basis for the classification of mental disorders, and at present are working at its national version. Under the initiative of A.S. Tiganov and with his active participation, annual scientific and practical conferences on important problems of psychiatry, psychopharmacology are conducted in the country. Such conferences are attended by the leading scientists of this country and foreign psychiatrists.

A.S. Tiganov is doing a great deal for postgraduate training of physicians and young scientists. He is constantly working on the elaboration of a methodology for teaching psychiatry. Under his initiative, a functional scientific-educational association of the MHRC RAMS with the Chair of Psychiatry of the Russian Medical Academy for Postgraduate Training has been created, that promotes the implementation of the newest achievements of psychiatric research into practice, not only in various regions of the Russian Federation, but abroad, as well.

A.S. Tiganov is involved in performing important research and social activities, he is the editor-in-chief of the journal “Psychiatry”, a member of the editorial board of the monthly “Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry named after S.S. Korsakov”, “Russian Medical Journal”. He is also a WHO expert on the problems of mental health and postgraduate training. A.S. Tiganov takes an active part in international WHO programs on psychiatry, psychopharmacotherapy and the creation of an international classification of mental disorders. He is a member of the Presidium of the Association of Psychiatrists of Russia and a member of the psychiatric section of the Scientific Council of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.

In 1958 D.D. Orlovskaya upheld her PhD (Candidate of Med. Sci.) thesis “Materials on the study of the functional status of adrenal cortex in patients with schizophrenia”, in 1966 - her doctoral thesis “Neuroendocrine factors in schizophrenia and their relation to its natural course”. Her scientific interests involve various aspects of biological psychiatry, including neuroanatomy of endogenous psychoses. She is the supervisor of one of the biological laboratories of the Centre, as well as being a scientific supervisor of 7 PhD's (Candidate of Med. Sci.) and 4 doctoral theses, an author of 160 scientific papers on various issues of clinical and biological psychiatry, a co-author of a “Handbook of Psychiatry” (1999) and a number of monographs. She is a member of the Inter-Institutional Scientific Council on Mental Health Problems of RAMS, an executive secretary of the “Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry named after S.S. Korsakov”, a member of the editorial board of the journal “Naukovedenie” of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

For many years doctor of medical sciences Maya Germanovna Shchirina has been the Scientific Secretary of the Centre.

M. G. Shchirina is a highly skilled professional, an expert in the field of gerontopsychiatry, whose works especially in the field of gerontopsychiatric epidemiology are well known to the psychiatrists in this country and abroad. She is also one of the most experienced science organizers. For 40 years she has provided planning, current control, making report documentation on research work of the Centre and has maintained contacts with various scientific organizations.

Besides the Mental Health Research Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences carries out functions of coordinating research work in the area of psychiatry in Russia (Coordinating Psychiatric Committee of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences works on the basis of the Center).

During the past period the staff of the Center consists of 723 employees, 220 of whom are researchers with medical, biological, and psychological education; clinical physicians (psychiatrists and other professionals) -79. The Mental Health Research Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences is situated in Moscow. Its address is as follows:

34, Kashirskoye shosse
115522, Moscow, Russia
Tel.: 499 617 61 74
Fax: 499 614 49 25

The Center is a complex of buildings built and opened in 1982. Clinical departments of the Center and part of some laboratories directly connected with the service of patients are situated in these buildings.

Part of the Center subdivisions are also located in the Moscow Municipal Clinical Mental Hospitals N 1 and N 15.