Mood Disorders Research Program

By integrating neuroimaging, treatment trials, clinical courses and genetic measures, the Department of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine is committed to improving our understanding of the neurophysiology and treatment outcomes for individuals struggling with mood disorders, especially recurrent depression and bipolar disorders.

The Mood Disorders Research program is engaged in developing novel treatments and neurophysiological models of these conditions through national study networks including the Bipolar Action Network (BAN) and the Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial for Bipolar Depression (SMART-BD) funded by PCORI. We are also actively training the next generation of mood disorder investigators.

This work is made possible, in part, by funding from Mary O'Daniel Stone and Bill Stone, NIH, PCORI, Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, IU Health, IU School of Medicine and the Riley Children's Foundation.

Focus Areas

Implenting a learning health network — IU School of Medicine is one of 14 sites participating in the Bipolar Action Network's national network which utilizes large, shared datasets and common outcomes measures to identify and rapidly translate best practices in bipolar disorder care throughout the network in people 15 years old and older. This work is funded by the Riley Foundation (Strakowski PI).
Determining the most effective bipolar disorder depression intervention — IU School of Medicine is one of 24 sites participating in a large effectiveness trial comparing Aripiprazole + Escitalopram, Quetiapine, Lurasidone, and Cariprazine in bipolar depression. This work is funded by a grant from PCORI (Mass General the lead site; Strakowski site PI).
Improving Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) for depression — The Mood Disorders Research Program is integrating TMS with neuroimaging to target stimulation for improved symptom outcomes. This project is funded by a CTSI K12 and an IU Health Values Grant (Conroy PI). We are also using daily interstitial cortisol measures as a novel predictor of TMS response (Indiana CTSI Engineering in Medicine grant, Conroy/Linnes mPIs).
Using genetic markers as predictors of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) response — U School of Medicine is one of 20 sites obtaining genetic markers within our ECT program to identify possible response predictors in treatment resistant depression. This project is funded by NIMH R01MH121542 (Conroy site PI).

Janssen 2001 (Conroy PI): A randomized double-blind, multicenter, placebo-controlled, proof-of-concept study to evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of JNJ-X as monotherapy in adult participants with major depressive disorder.
Janssen 3007 (Conroy PI): A randomized, double-blind, multicenter, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the efficacy of aticaprant as adjunctive therapy in adult participants with major depressive disorder with moderate-to-severe anhedonia and inadequate response to current antidepressant therapy.

IU School of Medicine is part of a three-site study of neurodevelopment in 14-21 year old participants with or without a first-degree relative with bipolar I disorder (90 in each group) and with or without childhood trauma. Aims include:

Using repeated fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to identify differences in developmental trajectories of functional and structural connectivity within ventral prefrontal networks over a three to four year period.
Using Cox regression, the Mood Disorders Research Program will identify differences in these same groups and subgroups in the emergence of mood episodes, substance misuse, and suicidality during the follow-up period. Namely, we will integrate imaging data with cognitive, clinical, early life adversity and psychosocial function measures to define risk pathways for the stated outcomes to extend and refine existing Risk Calculators for these events. To extend these results, we will apply innovative machine learning approaches to further define these associations.

This project is funded with two shared (The Dell Medical School at University of Texas at Austin, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine) National Institute of Mental Health (Strakowski PI).