Led by Gargi Mandal
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a highly effective treatment for depression, and ketamine, a non-competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist, has recently received surmountable attention for its rapid antidepressant effects. Hippocampal neurogenesis is proposed as a converging underlying mechanism in both treatment modalities.
The in vitro hippocampal progenitor cell (HPC) assay will be utilised as a predictor of response in both treatments. Baseline serum samples obtained from an ongoing ECT trial led by Prof. Mario Juruena and Prof. Allan Young, as well as from two completed clinical trials where patients underwent single and repeated ketamine infusions, obtained from Prof. Per Svenningsson at the Karolinska Institute and Prof. Mitul Mehta at King’s College London, respectively, will be tested.
Additionally, an alternative cognitive biomarker- the Mnemonic similarity task, will be used in the trial to determine if pattern separation (based on the same underlying neurogenesis mechanism) at baseline can predict response to ECT treatment.
Thuret Lab 