Eavesdrop On Experts

Major depressive disorder is common and costly – one in seven Australians will experience depression in their lifetime. So understanding what’s going on in the brain and using that knowledge to identify new, faster-acting therapeutic strategies for treatment makes sense. “Our job is to record the electrical activity of nerve cells, the excitable cells in the brain, by way of eavesdropping on their function,” says Professor Scott Thompson, Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Our research is focused on the neurobiology of depression, what goes wrong in the brain when there is a case of depression and we would like to use that knowledge to offer up ideas for better, more effective, faster acting antidepressant drug treatments,” he says. While current antidepressants – that include SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) like Prozac – are effective in two thirds of patients, they typically require four to eig