Translational Impacts of PET Neuroimaging and Women’s Mental Health: Postpartum Depression and Anorexia Nervosa
Speaker: Dr. Jeffrey Meyer, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto
Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Neurochemistry of Major Depression
Head of the Neurochemical Imaging Program in Mood Disorders in the Brain Health Imaging Centre at CAMH
Dr. Meyer specializes in applying positron emission tomography to identify markers of biological change in the midst of major depressive episodes and common comorbid illnesses; and then translate these into novel approaches for prevention and overcoming treatment resistance. He has more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, and led over 20 papers published in JAMA Psychiatry, Lancet Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, Brain and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These findings include discovery of a new dietary supplement to prevent depressed mood in early postpartum, discovering the first strong evidence for inflammation in the brain during major depressive episodes, OCD, long COVID, and traumatic brain injury with chronic symptoms; that monoamine oxidase A and B level is elevated in affect modulating brain regions during major depressive episodes and several specific high risk states for major depressive episodes. He also established the 80% therapeutic occupancy rule for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Dr. Meyer has received the AE Bennett Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry, the Distinguished Investigator Award from Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, the Innovations award from the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Samarthji Lal Award from the Graham Boeckh Foundation, the John Dewan Prize from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation and the Royal College Medal Award in Medicine for outstanding contributions to psychiatric research.
Talk summary: Brain imaging can be applied to identify biological changes associated with risk for, or state of, psychiatric illness. Such findings may suggest novel approaches for prevention and treatment. This talk will summarize two directions of research at different phases of development in the transition between discovery of biological changes in brain and therapeutic impact. The first set of studies, will review how changes in level of the monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) enzyme are associated with risk for major depressive episodes and the role of MAO-A in postpartum depression; and how a dietary supplement designed to compensate for elevated MAO-A level shows protection against depressive symptoms in postpartum. Prevention of postpartum depression is important given its 13% prevalence and historical lack of widespread preventative approaches. The second set of studies will focus on new data investigating the relationship between a brain marker of inflammation and anorexia nervosa (AN). The data shown is among the largest magnitude biological changes reported in AN. Such information may be crucial to advance new pharmacological treatment, an issue of key importance given the lack of evidence based pharmacological treatment in AN.
Agenda:
12-12:45 pm EDT: Speaker presentation
12:45-1:00 pm EDT: Question and answer period
