Project Summary

Lauren Jacobson, Ph.D. (Young Investigator 2002) of Albany Medical College, will examine why drugs that relieve psychiatric symptoms also normalize adrenocortical activity, but symptoms potentially mediated by glucocorticoids do not necessarily correlate with glucocorticoid levels.  She hypothesizes that these disparities reflect brain region-specific alterations in glucocorticoid signaling, resulting in increases or decreases in glucocorticoids via neuroendocrine regulation that in turn over-or-under-activate brain areas controlling emotion, behavior, or appetite.  Using a mouse model, she hopes to identify neural substrates for the symptoms common to several heterogeneous disorders, and suggest symptom-specific treatments for psychiatric patients with abnormal adrenocortical activity.  These experiments offer a unifying hypothesis to reconcile changes in adrenocortical activity with heterogeneous symptoms in psychiatric disorders, and should reveal new links between glucocorticoids, psychopharmacology and motivated behaviors relevant to mental illness.

Program Area: MOOD DISORDERS\Depression (Unipolar)

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