Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Depressed Adolescents

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall aim of this Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development (K23) Award is to develop and enhance the candidate's skills in patient-oriented clinical research so that he may become an independent researcher in the area of child mental health. This aim will be accomplished through a program of combined education, training, and the completion of a research project on functional neuroimaging of depressed adolescents. The candidate's major goal is to develop his proficiency in pediatric mood disorders research with a specific focus on the utilization of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to elucidate how brain activity in specific neuroanatomical regions is altered in children and adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). To achieve this goal, the candidate will be mentored by experts in the fields of functional and structural MRI, childhood and adolescent depression, experimental and research design, and biostatistics. The candidate furthermore will participate in educational activities in his department as well as formal coursework in the areas of biostatistics, experimental design, brain imaging, MRI physics, and functional MRI data analysis. The goal of the proposed research project is to study how amygdala activity is changed in depressed female and male adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder as compared to properly matched healthy control subjects. At the end of the award period, the candidate expects: (1) to possess the skills necessary to be an independent investigator in clinical research; (2) to have received funding as an independent investigator; and (3) to become a leader in the application of functional MRI to the scientific study of patients with childhood and adolescent depression.