National Center of Affective Disorders (NCAD)

Research

Treatment

  • Prediction of treatment-response
  • Neuropsychopharmacology, drug monitoring
  • Psychotherapies: CBT, CBASP, IPT and neurobiological effects of psychotherapy; sequential integration of psychotherapy with other treatment
  • Virtual reality and human-computer interaction
  • Neurostimulation
  • Personalized psychiatry and system-based treatments
  • Development of diagnostic instruments
  • Functional Imaging
  • Lifestyle in affective disorders
  • Cognition and social cognition
  • Digital Applications: Smartphone based assessment of early warning signs and prodromal symptoms

Special Subgroups / Comorbidities

  • Mental health of women, perinatal disorders, families and familial transmission of mental disorders, sex differences, gender aspects
  • Suicide research (biological markers, prevention, psychotherapeutic intervention, predictors and biomarkers)
  • Developmental Psychiatry
  • Long COVID-associated affective disorders
  • Comorbidity of affective disorders with ADHD, somatic disorders e.g. irritable bowel syndrome, rheumatic disorders, multiple sclerosis
  • Mechanisms of resilience against life stressors with respect to mood disorders

Pathophysiology

  • Epidemiology of mental disorders
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI; VBM, fMRI, DTI, rsMRI)
  • Gene x environmental interaction on brain structure and function
  • Transdiagnostic neurobiological clustering
  • Immune-neurobiology and microbiome associated with psychiatric disorders
  • Circadian mechanisms and sleep architecture in major mental disorders
  • Development of new technologies and digital applications
  • Functional Genomics and pharmacogenomics
  • Blood brain barrier permeability
  • Metabolic dysregulation (e.g. diabetes) in major depression
  • Effect of lifestyle (diet and physical activity) on mental health

Methods

  • Large deeply phenotyped, longitudinal cohorts
  • Functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI, sMRI, rsMRI, DTI), PET and MEG
  • Neurostimulation: (ECT, TMS, tDCS, tACS, VNS, tVNS, DBS)
  • Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacogenetics
  • Molecular neurobiology / Immune-neurobiology
  • Biomarker research, focus on blood-based markers and genetics
  • Multimodal functional genomics
  • Mouse/rat models
  • iPSC models
  • Virtual reality
  • Digital applications