Prof. Allan Young, King’s, Vice Dean of Academic Psychiatry, Philip Ritter, TUD, Bipolar and Depressive Disorders
Combining the expertise from researchers at TU Dresden and King’s, new insights into potential neurobiological response markers and mechanisms will improve the understanding and use of antidepressants to treat bipolar depression.
The aim of the project is to establish a working collaborative infrastructure and cross-campus PhD for multimodal functional neuroimaging (EEG & resting state fMRI) between the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences at the IoPPN and the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Dresden. Read more
[While the neurobiological mechanisms of antidepressant response to the fast acting N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist ketamine has received substantial attention during the past years, there has been very limited research on bipolar depression.
Building on previous exchanges and reciprocal lectures regarding the use of novel, rapid acting antidepressants (ketamine & psilocybin), the project group aims to establish common research protocols to provide the basis for the investigation of response markers and mechanisms in bipolar depression.
The TU Dresden site has developed clinical expertise in the use of ketamine for the treatment of bipolar depression but the research parameters of interest have been limited to toxicity markers and psychopathology. The substantial expertise in multimodal functional neuroimaging at the IoPPN will provide the basis for a comprehensive and both spatially and temporally highly granular investigation into potential neurobiological response markers and mechanisms.
Once feasibility has been established, a joint cross-campus PhD for the investigation of response markers and mechanisms of rapid acting antidepressants is planned.]