Mark S. George, MD is a professor of psychiatry

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

, radiology

Radiology

Radiology is a medical specialty that employs the use of imaging to both diagnose and treat disease visualized within the human body. Radiologists use an array of imaging technologies to diagnose or treat diseases...

 and neuroscience

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...

s and is the director of the Medical University of South Carolina

Medical University of South Carolina

The Medical University of South Carolina opened in Charleston, South Carolina in 1824 as a small private college for the training of physicians. It is one of the oldest continually operating school of medicine in the United States and the oldest in the Deep South...

 (MUSC) Center for Advanced Imaging Research as well as the Brain Stimulation Laboratory.

Dr. George's main research interests include major depression, bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

, anxiety disorder

Anxiety disorder

Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal and pathological fear and anxiety. Conditions now considered anxiety disorders only came under the aegis of psychiatry at the end of the 19th century. Gelder, Mayou & Geddes explains that anxiety disorders are...

s (particularly obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...

), Tourette syndrome

Tourette syndrome

Tourette syndrome is an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by multiple physical tics and at least one vocal tic; these tics characteristically wax and wane...

, and chronic pain

Chronic pain

Chronic pain has several different meanings in medicine. Traditionally, the distinction between acute and chronic pain has relied upon an arbitrary interval of time from onset; the two most commonly used markers being 3 months and 6 months since the initiation of pain, though some theorists and...

. His principal techniques include neuroimaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging

Functional magnetic resonance imaging

Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI is a type of specialized MRI scan used to measure the hemodynamic response related to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging...

 and Positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography is nuclear medicine imaging technique that produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body. The system detects pairs of gamma rays emitted indirectly by a positron-emitting radionuclide , which is introduced into the body on a...

), brain stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation

Vagus nerve stimulation

Vagus nerve stimulation is an adjunctive treatment for certain types of intractable epilepsy and treatment-resistant depression.- Mechanism of action :...

 (VNS), transcranial magnetic stimulation

Transcranial magnetic stimulation

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a noninvasive method to cause depolarization or hyperpolarization in the neurons of the brain...

 (TMS), deep brain stimulation

Deep brain stimulation

Deep brain stimulation is a surgical treatment involving the implantation of a medical device called a brain pacemaker, which sends electrical impulses to specific parts of the brain...

 (DBS), and electroconvulsive therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy , formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Its mode of action is unknown...

 (ECT).

After earning his B.A. in philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 (cum laude) at Davidson College

Davidson College

Davidson College is a private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina. The college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine, although it has recently dropped to 11th in U.S. News...

 in 1980, Dr. George went on to earn his M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...

 in 1985, where he still works today.

A pioneer of using TMS to treat depression, Dr. George has recently received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Food and Drug Administration

The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...

 to use this technique. It is thought to be especially effective to treat people whose depression does not respond to antidepressant

Antidepressant

An antidepressant is a psychiatric medication used to alleviate mood disorders, such as major depression and dysthymia and anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder. According to Gelder, Mayou &*Geddes people with a depressive illness will experience a therapeutic effect to their mood;...

 medications.

Dr. George has also been integral to the research on using fMRI as a method of lie detection. This research indicates that specific regions of the brain are activated when a subject deceives, and has shown a high success rate in clinical trials. It remains to be seen whether this method will eventually replace traditional polygraph

Polygraph

A polygraph measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while the subject is asked and answers a series of questions...

s in legal settings.