We congratulate Nanna Svart for being granted a 1-year introduction stipend from the Research Council at Rigshospitalet for the project 'Resting State fMRI and Psychotherapy Response in Depression'.
Summary of Nanna's 1-year project:
Despite the well documented efficacy of psychotherapy for depression, substantial interindividual variability in treatment response remains. Currently, no validated neurobiological markers can guide treatment selection in routine clinical care. Resting state functional MRI (rsfMRI) is a promising candidate for predicting treatment response, but research has focused mainly on pharmacological interventions, particularly antidepressants. The potential of rs fMRI to predict psychotherapy outcomes in standard clinical settings is therefore largely unknown.
This one year project addresses this gap using neuroimaging and clinical data from the BrainDrugs Depression trial, a naturalistic outpatient cohort. The primary aim is to examine whether pre treatment resting state connectivity patterns are associated with clinical response to group based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
In parallel, the project contributes to establishing the PRIME D randomized controlled trial, which will test whether augmenting group based CBT with the pro cognitive agent prucalopride improves clinical and cognitive outcomes. Conducted in the same setting as BrainDrugs, PRIME D ensures continuity between observational findings and future experimental work. Together, the project forms a strong foundation for a subsequent PhD in precision psychiatry.