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Affective Disorders Research Project

Development of novel biomarkers and therapies for affective disorders

Project Leader Yoshitaka Tatebayashi

Project Leader
Yoshitaka Tatebayashi

Yoshitaka Tatebayashi has been the head of the Affective Disorders Research Project since 2014. He obtained his MD from Osaka University School of Medicine in 1989 and worked at Osaka University Hospital from 1989 to 1990, the Graduate School of Medicine at Osaka University from 1990 to 1994, and the Department of Neurology at Nippon Life Hospital from 1994 to 1996. He then worked as a research scientist at the Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities from 1996 to 2000, and at RIKEN Brain Science Institute from 2000 to 2004. He was the director of the Depression Laboratory at the Tokyo Institute of Psychiatry from 2004 to 2011, and the director of the Depression Laboratory at TMIMS from 2011 to 2014.

Backgrounds

The number of patients suffering from affective disorders such as depression has increased in recent years. These disorders are a leading cause of suicide and as such carry a heavy social burden. The pathology of these disorders is still unknown, and methods of objective diagnosis and treatment remain inadequate.

This project, along with identifying brain abnormalities and using these as a basis for developing objective diagnostic methods, aims to develop methods of treatment with fewer side effects through the analysis of depression animal model systems, neuronal-glial correlation, and model systems at the level of brain cells, especially that of oligodendrocytes.

Objectives

  • In addition to establishing a depression animal model, to elucidate the pathogenesis of mood disorders by advancing analysis at the level of brain cells, especially that of oligodendrocytes
  • To carry out studies that chiefly bridge basic and clinical research to develop new methods of treatment and objective methods of diagnosis such as imaging and blood biomarkers

Members

Project Leader Yoshitaka Tatebayashi

  • Naomi Nihonmatsu
  • Kazuhisa Aoki
  • Yoshiki Matsuda