Professor Jo Hang-joon (Physiology Class, College of Medicine) is assigned an R01 research project from the National Institute of Health (NIH).

A research team of Professor Jo Hang-joon recently developed a proving method of cognitive functions using drugs, by utilizing functional MRI, MR spectroscopy, and functional connectivity analysis and found possibilities to improve cognitive functions from some medications. Based on these research achievements, he got a research project from the NIH that he is going to conduct for the upcoming five years together with the Department of Endocrinology and Radiology of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, in the United States. Through this research, he is going to prove the cognitive function improvement effect of the previous drugs such as Metformin which is usually used to cure diabetes, and based on that, he is going to test the possibility of it as a cure for degenerative incurable diseases such as Alzheimer. 

Professor Jo said, "Following the aging trend of the world including Korea and the United States, neuropsychiatric disorders related to the decrease in cognitive function are causing a tremendous amount of social costs. In a situation where the development of new drugs and the effect test is slower than the spread of social cost loss due to such diseases, I think this research is a meaningful attempt to show high efficiency by applying a neuroimaging technology to the previous medications. I wish we could make this an opportunity to set a new research methodology for the findings to be used in incurable disease treatment."