Associate Editors
Dr. Bannach-Brown is an early career researcher at the QUEST Center, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité, where she develops and delivers preclinical systematic review education and provides methodological support to researchers carrying out systematic reviews of preclinical data. She conducts systematic review in animal models of psychiatry and has specialised expertise in applying automation techniques and software for systematic review.
In recent years, more and more research has suggested that an inflammatory component exists in affective disorders and other psychiatric diseases. Our research focus is:
- By use of animal models, we examine inflammatory components of interest. This is done, by either infecting the animals with the component or by use of genetically modified animals, which either lack or overexpress the protein of interest. Subsequently, the animals undergo a battery of behavioural tests targeted towards the modalities of interest, and biological material is collected and analysed. We also examine whether we can normalize behaviour by treating 'depressed' animals with drugs that affect the immune response.
- When an inflammatory component has been shown to be related to behavioural changes in our experimental animals, we examine the expression of this component in relevant patient groups and correlate the component to specific aspects of the disease.
- An important aspect of our research is to pin point potential underlying causes of the inflammation. We are currently focusing on the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which is known to cause behavioural changes in animals and humans and also lead to a chronic low grade neuroinflammation.
- Furthermore, we are interested in elucidating the underlying molecular aspects of inflammation-induced depression. This involves examinations of the mTor- and kynurenine pathway as well as amino acids and monoamines.
Our preclinical neuroimaging group investigates novel therapies for depression and Parkinson's disease. Using PET with specific radiolabeled biomarkers, we monitor in vivo molecular changes in translationally relevant rodent and minipig models, focusing on neurotransmission, synaptic plasticity, and neuroinflammation. Current projects explore the therapeutic mechanisms of brain stimulation, ketamine, and inverse GPR6 agonists. Our research also includes behavioral readouts, postmortem analysis, and collaborations on PET biomarker development with radiochemists and industry partners.
Dr Rajamani is a clinically active researcher (clinical associate professor) in old age Psychiatry. He has 20 years of Psychiatric research experience and a broad spectrum of research expertise. He has a unique combination of expertise in clinical psychiatry, epidemiology, biostatistics, molecular genetics, RNA biology, and relevant bioinformatics. He has experience of designing and conducting translational research studies, qualitative research, meta-analyses, clinical trials, and epidemiological, pharmacogenetic, biomarker and next-generation sequencing studies. He has published more than 64 peer-reviewed research papers (Google scholar citations: 2918; h-index: 29; i-10 index: 47) so far. He has the experience of participating in journal editorial boards and research ethics committees. He has been serving as an associate editor of the official journal of the Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Acta Neuropsychiatrica, since 2012. Moreover, He has been serving the Academic Training Programme Director for Psychiatry in the University of Nottingham since 2021. He has been a regional (Midlands) lead of the Deep Dementia Phenotyping network, an international network for applying data science and artificial intelligence in dementia research.
Since I commenced my PhD studies, my research has centred on the neurobiology of stress-related disorders; with particular emphasis on mood and anxiety disorders. Throughout the course of my studies in the UK, Switzerland and Germany, I have focussed on the development and utilization of state-of-the-art behavioural, pharmacological and molecular approaches to study the neuropathophysiology of these disorders and to assess novel drugs that could be used to treat them.
I performed my BBSRC Case Award PhD at the University of Bristol and Organon Laboratories Ltd (supervised by Dr Alan Hudson and Prof. David Nutt) with the title “Characterisation of a novel antidepressant: Org 34167. During this time, amongst other studies, I demonstrated that the immediate-early genes c-fos and Egr-1 could be used for mapping the actions of psychotropics in the brain. Thereafter, in my first post-doctoral position at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland (supervised by Prof. John F. Cryan), the aim of my studies was the development of novel animal models for studying major depressive disorder. Towards that end, I setup and established an intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) paradigm, with which to study the reward circuitry in the brains of rodents. Having achieved this, I combined the ICSS paradigm with the olfactory bulbectomy model of depression, one of the few models that require chronic antidepressant administration to reverse the induced deficits. Thereafter, I moved to the University of Regensburg, Germany (supervised by Prof. Dr. Inga Neumann) where I studied the potential role of neuropeptides, especially oxytocin and neuropeptide S in the aetiology and potential treatment of mood and anxiety-disorders. Moreover, given the high prevalence of postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, a highly understudied research topic, I performed a series of studies in which to assess the impact stress during the peripartum period has on the dam. Since 2016, I have worked at Goethe University Frankfurt and continue to follow these research areas.
My research focuses on the effects of early life adversity on the role of glial cells, in particular oligodendrocyte progenitors. I have studied Pharmacy (University of Milan and obtained my PhD in Neuropsychopharmacology. After my PhD, I spent several years as a postdoctoral researcher in Denmark Aarhus University and in Germany University of Mainz and several periods as a visiting scientist in Sweden Lund (University, Malmö. Since October 2023 I have been working at the University of Marburg) Germany as a professor of neuroanatomy with a focus on systemic neuroscience.
Professor at the School of Medicine of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS). Advisor for Master’s and Doctoral students in the Graduate Programs in Medicine and Health Sciences, and in Pediatrics and Child Health at PUCRS. Research Coordinator at the PUCRS School of Medicine. Associate Researcher at the Preclinical Research Center of the Brain Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (InsCer) at PUCRS. Psychologist with a Master’s degree (2013) and a Ph.D. (2018) from the Graduate Program in Pediatrics and Child Health at PUCRS. Completed a one-year research internship (2015–2016) at the University of California, Irvine, USA, in the field of Neuroepigenetics. Postdoctoral fellow funded by the National Institutes of Health (2018–2020), including a three-month training period at the Queensland Brain Institute, Australia, in Translational Neuropsychiatry. Research fellow at the Translational Neuropsychiatry Unit (Aarhus University, Denmark) at three occasions (2022, 2023, 2024), specializing in Translational Neuropsychiatry. His research focuses on epigenetic, neurobiological, cognitive, behavioral, and epidemiological investigations in mental health, particularly regarding vulnerability/resilience to adverse developmental experiences and substance use disorders during adolescence and adulthood.
Professional Link - Link - https://www.pucrs.br/researchers/thiago-wendt-viola/
Søren Dinesen Østergaard heads the research unit at the Dept. of Affective Disorders, Aarhus University Hospital - Psychiatry. His own research focuses predominantly on improving the treatment of severe mental disorder via development, validation and implementation of clinical tools based on psychometrics and artificial intelligence.
Lívea Godoy holds a degree in Biological Sciences from the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto (FFLCRP-USP) and a degree in Letters from Faculdade Interativa COC. She earned her Master’s degree in Psychobiology (2014) from the Graduate Program at FFLCRP-USP and completed her PhD in Physiology (2019) at the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (USP).
She was a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University (2017–2018) and served as a substitute professor at the Federal University of Alfenas (UNIFAL) from 2019 to 2020.
Since from 2022 she conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Pharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto (USP). Currently, she is also a Visiting Researcher at the Translational Neuropsychiatry Unit at Aarhus University, Denmark (since 2023), and recently completed a research internship at the University of the Basque Country (Universidad del País Vasco) in 2024/2025.
Her research experience includes work with animal models of epilepsy, depression, and anxiety. Her primary focus is on understanding the physiological mechanisms and the role of stress hormones in brain regions associated with cognitive and emotional processes.