Depression, Infectious Pathogens and subclinical Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)

描述(由申请人提供)： 候选人：应聘者是医学助理教授，拥有流行病学博士学位。他在研究设计、数据分析和手稿写作方面拥有异常强大的技能。长期以来，他一直对抑郁症如何影响心血管健康感兴趣，并是最近发表在《内科医学档案》上的一项关于抑郁症和偶发心力衰竭的研究的主要作者。应聘者目前的职业目标有两个：(1)进行一项研究，研究传染性病原体是否调节了抑郁症和冠状动脉疾病(CAD)之间的联系，以及(2)提高他的研究技能，以培养他未来进行抑郁症和CAD研究的能力。他的长期职业目标是成为一名独立的调查员，进行以患者为导向的抑郁症和心血管疾病研究。 研究职业发展计划：应聘者打算从事一些职业发展活动。最重要的两项活动如下：(1)他将接受如何管理用于测量抑郁症的仪器的培训。这些工具将包括DSM-IV结构化临床访谈(SCID)以及汉密尔顿抑郁量表(HAMD)。在接受了充分的培训后，应试者将这些工具应用于他的研究的参与者。(2)候选人将获得人格和心理学领域的进一步知识，并将发展统计遗传学领域的技能。这将通过参加研讨会、研讨会和课程来实现。 研究项目：候选人研究项目的具体目的是检查抑郁症和亚临床冠心病之间的联系是否由感染性病原体介导。他的项目将是现有NHLBI资助的一项调查(“双胞胎心脏研究”)的子研究。他的项目将基于80对男性双胞胎的样本。抑郁将通过SCID、HAMD和Beck抑郁量表进行评估。对各种感染病原体的抗体的血清阳性将通过酶联免疫吸附试验方法进行评估。冠心病的亚临床测量将包括冠状动脉血流储备(由PET评估)、颈动脉内膜-中层厚度(由超声评估)和血流介导的臂动脉扩张(由超声评估)。随机效应回归方法将被用来确定抑郁症是否与感染性病原体接触有关，以及这种联系是否解释了抑郁症和亚临床CAD之间的联系。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Candidate: The candidate is an Assistant Professor of Medicine with a Ph.D. in epidemiology. He has exceptionally strong skills in the areas of study design, data analysis, and manuscript writing. He has had a longstanding interest in how depression affects cardiovascular health, and was lead author of a recent study of depression and incident heart failure that was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The candidate's immediate career goals are twofold: (1)Conduct a study which examines whether infectious pathogens mediate the link between depression and coronary artery disease (CAD), and (2)Enhance his research skills in ways that will foster his ability conduct future studies of depression and CAD. His long term career goal is to become an independent investigator conducting patient-oriented studies of depression and cardiovascular disease. Research Career Development Plan: The candidate intends to pursue a number of career development activities. The two most important activities will be as follows: (1)He will receive training in how to administer instruments designed to measure depression. These instruments will include the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) as well as the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD). After receiving sufficient training, the candidate will administer these instruments to participants in his study. (2)The candidate will acquire further knowledge in the area of personality and psychology and will develop skills in the area of statistical genetics. This will be accomplished by attending seminars, workshops, and classes. Research Project: The specific aim of the candidate's research project is to examine whether the association between depression and subclinical CAD is mediated by infectious pathogens. His project will be a substudy of an existing NHLBI-funded investigation ("The Twins Heart Study"). His project will be based on a sample of 80 male-male twin pairs. Depression will be assessed by the SCID, HAMD, and the Beck Depression Inventory. Seropositivity to antibodies of a variety of infectious pathogens will be assessing by ELISA methods. Subclinical measures of CAD will include coronary flow reserve (assessed by PET), carotid intima-media thickness (assessed by ultrasound), and flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery (assessed by ultrasound). Random effects regression methods will be used to determine if depression is associated with infectious pathogen exposure and whether such an association explains the link between depression and subclinical CAD.