Gray matter? A life's work examining mental disorders

Brain diseases are a black-and-white issue for research psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, MD, who stakes out polemic positions on causes and treatments.

By Stephanie Stapleton, AMNews staff. Aug. 19, 2002.

E. Fuller Torrey, MD, is a psychiatrist who collects brains. He has lots of them -- 474 at last count. They're the Stanley Foundation brain collection, a tissue bank that is among the world's best brain research resources.

He also has lots of money. About $33 million worth. All in the form of scientific grants he oversees to advance research regarding schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. As director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, he has a pocketbook for this specific research dwarfed only by that of the National Institute of Mental Health.

And he has lots of ideas -- ideas about the mysterious etiology of schizophrenia, the soundness of NIMH's brain research priorities and the necessity of treating people with severe brain diseases, especially those who are homeless.

Obviously, Dr. Torrey, 64, spends a considerable amount of time on matters of the brain -- matters that other people might consider gray.

But to him, there is no such thing.

He has been described as having a black-and-white vision of mental illness -- as being iconoclastic, dogmatic, single-minded, a renegade.

It's hard to believe. In person, he seems mild-mannered, more like a college professor than a well-known brain researcher and controversial advocate for the treatment of severe brain diseases. However, he is exactly the latter two things, inspiring reactions so strong that he is treated by some with cult-like loyalty and by others, even from his own profession, with virulent opposition.

Dr. Torrey says the phenomenon is an unintended consequence, incidental to his real goal. "I always wanted to be a doctor, ever since I was a little boy, and I took great pride in being a doctor. Still do." [...]