Molecular neuropsychopharmacology

Genetics of affective disorders.

Despite substantial evidence for heritability in affective disorders the contributing genes have proven elusive. Here we discuss the genetic epidemiology of depression, as well as methodological issues and results from molecular genetic studies. There has been rapid advances in genetics, genomics and statistical modelling, facilitating the search for molecular mechanisms underlying affective di...

Electroconvulsive therapy exerts mainly acute molecular changes in serum of major depressive disorder patients.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is mainly used to treat medication resistant major depressive disorder (MDD) patients, with a remission rate of up to 90%. However, little is known about the serum molecular changes induced by this treatment. Understanding the mechanisms of action of ECT at the molecular level could lead to identification of response markers and potential new drug targets for mor...

The DRD2 C957T polymorphism and the attentional blink--a genetic association study.

The attentional blink phenomenon (AB) describes a transient deficit in temporally selective visual attention regarding the processing of the second of two target stimuli in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. The AB is a very prominent paradigm in the Cognitive Neurosciences that has been extensively studied by diverse psychophysiological techniques such as EEG or fMRI. Association ...

Gene Targeting and Transgenic Technologies

Recent progress in the development of molecular genetic methods enables the manipulation of genes in intact mammalian organisms. The power of such techniques to elucidate complex biological systems was initially recognized and exploited by developmental biologists and immunologists. More recently, the utility of these approaches for examining neural gene function in the context of the intact or...

The clinical investigation of medicinal products in the treatment of schizophrenia.

Clinical investigation of medicinal products in the treatment of epileptic disorders.