Topics and Speakers Irina Antonijevic, MD, PhD
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Synopsis
The promise of translational research in depression and anxiety is that by mimicking specific aspects of the human disease in animals, researchers will better understand these disorders, which in turn will expand the range of pharmacological interventions used to treat patients. In this lecture, Irina Antonijevic discusses the challenges and opportunities raised by this innovative model of research.
One of the difficulties of translational research is that many of the hallmark symptoms of depression and anxiety are difficult to mimic in animals. For example, recurrent thoughts of death and recurrence of suicidal ideation are common features of major depression but no natural corollary exists in animals. In animal studies, researchers must study the cognitive symptoms of human depression by using easily measurable parameters such as decrease or increase in appetite, or psychomotor disturbances, as proxies.
Translational research should use "back translation," beginning with humans and working back to animals. In other words, the researcher attempts to mimic the measurable characteristics of human major depressive episode or anxiety disorder in animals.
Past attempts to model depression in animals involved inducing stress. The drawback of this approach, according to Dr. Antonijevic, is that there is at best a tenuous connection between stress and depression. A more recent approach is to measure endophenotypes, biological readouts or biomarkers, as a way of studying the common physiology of depression and anxiety in humans and animals.
