Head of the Department - Barkhatova Alexandra Nicholaevna, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor. In 2005 she defended her PhD thesis "Endogenous Adolescent Paroxysmal Psychosis with Catatonic Disorders in the Structure of Manifest Episode (Clinical and Follow-up Study)," in 2016 - doctoral thesis "Deficient Disorders at the Initial Stages of Adolescent Endogenous Paroxysmal Psychosis (Multidisciplinary Research)." The range of scientific interests: study of endogenous mental diseases, in particular the course of schizophrenia, various aspects of affective pathology, problems of border mental disorders, including a wide range of socially significant pathologies, such as eating disorders and sexual identity disorders. A.N. Barkhatova is an academic advisor of applicants and postgraduate students. She is the author of more than 150 scientific publications in national and foreign journals, Deputy Chairman of the Dissertation Council on Psychiatry, MHRC, member of the Executive Committee, the Board of the Russian Society of Psychiatrists.

The Department has been formed on the basis of the clinical unit of schizophrenia of the Institute of Psychiatry of AMS USSR, that had been formerly headed by Prof. R.A.Nadzharov, Prof. T.F. Papadoupoulos, Prof. A.K. Anufriev, Prof. I.V. Shakhmatova-Pavlova. This unit continued to study the different clinical types of the natural course of schizophrenia. Large genealogical patient samples were collected, that allowed to determine characteristic feature of the hereditary predisposition in various forms of this disease; along with this clinical and biological programs were further developed. These works continued studies on psychopathology and the clinical picture of schizophrenia, started under the leadership for Prof. A.V. Snezhnevsky at the Chair of Psychiatry of the Central Institute for Medical Postgraduate Training (CIMPT). In 1982, the clinical unit of schizophrenia within the Centre was transformed into the Department of endogenous psychoses of middle age and in 1998 - into the Department on endogenous mental disorders and affective states. The Department is based in 2 clinical units of the in-patient part of the MHRC RAMS, in a number of units in the mental hospital #15 and a number of out-patient psychiatric centres. The Department is in close collaboration with scientific laboratories of the Centre, namely, with the laboratories of clinical biochemistry, immunology, neurophysiology, psychology and genetics.

The Department is staffed with 22 persons: 19 research fellows, as well as psychiatrists and clinical psychologists.

Scope of research activities of the Department:

• Comparative nosological studies of psychopathology and clinical patterns of development of affective and delusional disorders in endogenous disorders, with an evaluation of their prognosis.
• Determination of the characteristic features of psychopathology, clinical picture and systematization of attack-like endogenous psychoses - schizophrenia, schizoaffective and affective psychoses, in their age-related aspect (those of the middle age and of the youth).
• Identification of characteristic features of the pathogenesis of attack-like schizophrenia, schizoaffective and affective psychoses, based on genetic, clinical, biological and pathopsychological evaluation, with the aim of a nosological differentiation of endogenous psychoses.
• A study of the clinical and pathogenetical basis for the clinical evaluation of an independent specific type of endogenous psychoses in the form of protracted attacks of puberty and the youth, and determination of age-related specificity of their psychopathological pictures, course and outcome.
• Assessment of the role of endogenous, including genetic, and environmental factors (exogenous, somatogenic, seasonal) in the formation of endogenous psychoses and circular affective states.
• Elaboration of a scientific basis for new approaches to the treatment of patients with endogenous psychoses, based on psychopharmacotherapy in combination with psychotherapy and psychocorrectional and social rehabilitation measures.