The Mount Sinai Conte Center for the Neuroscience of Mental Disorders is designed to be a highly focused effort to elucidate the role of white matter, oligodendrocytes, and myelin in schizophrenia. To do so, the Conte Center brings together basic and clinical neuroscientists in a strongly integrated series of interdependent studies. A broad set of methodologies and expertise is brought to bear on the questions the Conte center pursues, including neuroanatomy, neuroimaging, molecular biology, molecular genetics, neuropsychology, phenomenology, statistics, and data management.