Funding from RH

Congratulations to Vibe Frøkjær for receiving 879.700 DKK from the Research Council of Rigshospitalet for the 3-year project "Brain architecture of risk and resilience in the context of steroid hormone dynamics and inflammation; window of opportunity for protecting mental health".

Summary: The brain integrates steroid hormone information, which profoundly affects brain function. Likewise, the brain also exerts regulatory control on hormone systems, which also involve the immune system. This neuroendocrine interplay is critical to maintain mental health and is far from understood even though it holds grand potential for improving the clinical management and prevention of several large public health challenges such as neurodegenerative disorders and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) including perinatal depression (PND). In this research program we apply an integrated clinical brain imaging approach to (a) illuminate risk and resilience mechanisms for neuropsychiatric disorders related to the serotonergic neurotransmitter system, steroid hormone dynamics, and neuroinflammation, and (b) to translate such mechanistic understanding to inform a stratified and precision medicine approach to MDD and to evaluate a novel preventive strategy for protecting perinatal mental health.
With the supplementary activities applied for here we anticipate to (1) consolidate, operationalise and share our world-largest database of molecular brain imaging in healthy individuals and biobank ressource to provide a long-term scientific resource, (2) expand our ongoing studies in peripartum women to include data on infant offspring and map the consequences of mother´s perinatal mental health for infant biology and development. Taken together this work holds grand potential to promote healthy human life from infancy through adulthood and reduce burden of brain disorders.