The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation, a nonprofit providing suicide prevention training and education services in North Texas, has provided research funding in the amount of $49,950 to Dr. Crystal Cooper, a researcher with the Cook Children’s Jane and John Justin Neuroscience Center.
The study is titled: Cognitive and Neuroimaging Biomarkers of Well-being in Youth with and without Epilepsy.
“Here at Cook Children’s Neuroscience Research Center, we use the latest innovative developments in pediatric neuroimaging to understand brain structure and function. On top of that, our physicians are invested in harnessing research knowledge to aid clinical care,” Cooper said.
“Like depression, epilepsy is a common, diverse disorder with various causes, treatments, and outcomes. Having multiple mental health struggles are common in patients with epilepsy, with nearly 50% of patients having depression,” he said.
In addition to mental health disturbances among the general population, psychiatric disorders occur at high rates in patients with epilepsy, with nearly 50% of patients having depression, and 30% having anxiety.
Additionally, a CDC study published in Epilepsy and Behavior reported a 22% higher rate of suicide among those with epilepsy compared to the general population, the foundation said in a news release.
The work of Cooper in Cook Children’s Neuroscience Research Center, directed by Dr. Christos Papadelis, is bridging mental health and cognitive neuroscience to better understand and inform the clinical world’s ability to enhance its precision treatment for these young patients.
Her work is aligned with the main goal of the center to facilitate the development of methods, technologies and treatments to alleviate the negative effects of these diseases and in some cases, to cure them.
“We are very excited to provide this funding for Dr. Cooper’s project and have the utmost respect for the groundbreaking research projects going on at Cook Children’s Health Care System to support the health and well-being of our community’s children,” said Christina Judge, executive director of The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation.
The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation (The JEHF) is a 501(c)(3) public charity and was created after the 2012 suicide of Jordan Harris of North Richland Hills who was in her senior year at the University of Michigan.
Her family discovered there were no local programs available in Tarrant County providing evidence-based suicide prevention training and education and the foundation was founded in 2014 to undertake that role in Tarrant County. The services provided by the foundation are unduplicated in Tarrant County, a news release said.