J. Christian Gillin, 65; Psychiatry Professor, Expert on Sleep

J. Christian Gillin, 65, a professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego who was also an authority on sleep and mood disorders, died Saturday of esophageal cancer at a hospice in San Diego.

According to the university, Gillin focused his work on the antidepressant effects of sleep deprivation. He believed that sleep deprivation was an excellent experimental model for the study of antidepressant treatments and could lead to new, rapidly acting treatments based upon new models of brain function.

Gillin also studied depression and bright light treatment for depression; immunological relationships to sleep; and alcoholism.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Gillin graduated from Harvard and earned his medical degree from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. He later completed his psychiatric training as Stanford University Medical School.

He joined the UC San Diego faculty in 1982 and also directed the Mental Health Clinical Research Center at the university. The author of more than 500 scientific articles, he was on the editorial board of nine journals and for seven years was the editor in chief of Neuropsychopharmacology, the official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.