Personalized therapy for affective disorders
Research areas
Affective disorders including Major depressive disorder and Bipolar affective disorder are highly prevalent mental diseases with highest rates of disability. Very often affective disorders are accompanied by somatic diseases (e.g. cardiovascular or neurological diseases). The standard therapeutic procedures are still not adequately effective. One reason for this is that our knowledge on biological pathways of mental disorders is not yet sufficient. Moreover, the associations of mental disorders with medical comorbidities is still not well-known. One main issue is the lack of individualized treatment options.
Due to a favourable probability of therapeutic success by an antidepressant treatment in general, but rather low antidepressant response rates, individualized treatment strategies are essential.
The research group focuses on personalized treatment strategies in patients with affective disorders. Therefore, pharmacogenetic analyses of the individual metabolic function (CYP2D6, CYP2C19) and Therapeutic Drug Monitoring with determination of serum concentration of antidepressant drugs and other psychopharmacological agents are used to individualize psychopharmacological treatment (PD Dr. Weber, Prof. Dr. Unterecker).
Team
Head
- Prof. Dr. med. Dipl.-Psych. Stefan Unterecker
Telefon: +49 931 201-77545
E-Mail: Unterecker_S@ukw.de
Scientific cooperation partner
- Dr. med Bodo Warrings
Telefon: +49 931 201-77810
E-Mail: warrings_b@ukw.de
Research associates
- Dr. Carolin Weiß
E-Mail: weiss_c2@ukw.de - Paula Wessels, M.Sc.
E-Mail: wessels_p@ukw.de - PD Dr. rer. nat. Maike Scherf-Clavel
E-Mail: scherf_m@ukw.de
Study Nurse
- Theresa Troll
E-Mail: troll_t@ukw.de Katharina Zürrlein
E-Mail: zuerrlein_k@ukw.de
Current projects
- P4D
Further information can be found here. - UTN
Further information can be found here. - theta Burst
Further information can be found here. - BELKO
Further information can be found here. - POSCOR
Further information can be found here.
Publications
Publications of the working group can be found on pubmed and in the list of publications of our hospital.