| Wayne Drevets, MD, Chief
The Mood and Anxiety Disorders Imaging Section consists of a multidisciplinary team, which applies functional, and structural neuroirnaging measures to investigate the biological mechanisms of normal and pathological emotional states. Multimodal imaging studies in which subject samples are studied using various imaging techniques are conducted in order to provide complementary information about pathophysiology. Positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and morphological MRI are iteratively applied to investigate abnormalities of function or structure in mood and anxiety disorders. Areas of concentration include: 1) investigating the anatomical, neurophysiological and neurochernical substrates of normal emotional expression, evaluation, learning or experience, 2) characterizing the anatomical and neurochernical systems involved in modulating emotional responses, and assessing how these systems function in mood and anxiety disorders, 3) examining the effects of psychotropic medications on brain structure and function in adults with mood and anxiety disorders, 4) assessing the receptor pharmacology of mood and anxiety disorders using a variety of newly developed PET radioligands, 5) distinguishing abnormalities that are trait-like and stable across mood states from those that are mood-state dependent, and 6) delineating phenotypic differences between major depressive subtypes in order to refine the nosology of mood disorders. |
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