Translational Psychoneuroscience
Research group of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
The mind, nervous system, and immune system interact mutually. It is the aim of our research to identify and characterize these interrelationships. We focus on autoimmune processes in psychiatric disorders, as well as autoimmune mechanisms causing neurodegeneration in psychiatric disease. Psychiatric diseases can be associated with autoantibodies against intracellular and membrane-surface antigens. The spectrum of autoantibody-associated psychiatric symptoms and disorders has been continuously and dramatically expanded by scientific progress over the last few years. The spectrum of autoantibody-associated psychiatric syndromes and symptoms and disorders has been continuously and dramatically expanded by scientific progress over the last few years.
It is essential that we optimize the phenotyping of patients and deepen our knowledge of disease mechanisms. The significance of autoantibodies in serum or cerebrospinal fluid in conjunction with psychiatric symptoms and syndromes is barely understood, and has not yet been systematically investigated.
Overarching goals
The overarching aim of our research group is to characterize the frequency, significance and spectrum of psychiatric symptoms associated with autoantibodies and having a potential biological basis offering us novel insights into the pathophysiology and therapy of these patients thanks to neuroimaging, electroencephalographic measurements, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, and neuropsychological techniques. Through these methods we want to unravel immune signatures and detect novel membrane-bound and intracellularly-located neural and synaptic antigens as targets for autoantibodies associated with psychiatric symptoms. As a further aim we want to discern the significance of associated autoantibodies for the phenotypology and pathophysiology of psychiatric diseases and in particular demential disorders. A major focus will be to describe and understand cognitive dysfunction and memory impairment in patients with autoantibody-associated psychiatric syndroms. Furthermore, we are interested in fundamental research questions concerning the interaction between the nervous and immune system and its role in the development of psychopathology.
Selection of planned projects
- Analysis of exosomes obtained from cerebrospinal fluid and plasma of patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders
- Benefits and application of capillary autologous blood collection and postal shipment to the sample laboratory (Blood it yourself study)
- Blood biomarkers in late life depression to identify an early Alzheimer's signature (SIGNAL)
- Early identification and phenotyping of prodromal dementia with Lewy bodies by established and novel biomarkers (PRO-DLB)
- European Dementia with Lewy Bodies (E-DLB) Consortium
- Identification of risk factors for delirium and delayed onset of persistent cognitive deterioration after cardiac surgery - FINDERI (Find delirium risk factors)
- miRNAs for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease
- Molecular biomarkers in psychiatric diseases (biomaterial bank)
Multicenter study to identify the main factors responsible for delayed or misdiagnosis in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies - Multicenter, prospective registry for cerebrospinal fluid analysis in psychiatric disorders (Cerebrospinal Fluid Analysis in Psychiatry = CAP)
- Noselab study (collection of nasal secretions for comparison with cerebrospinal fluid)
- Retrospective and monocentric data analysis of gastroenterological and general neoplasia rates of patients with autoimmune psychoses and autoimmune encephalitides in a university center
- Retrospective data analysis of data collected as part of routine medical care on the frequency and type of neural and paraneoplastic autoantibodies in patients with psychiatric symptoms
Contact
Research group leader
Prof. Dr. Niels Hansen
+40 551 3965637
niels.hansen(at)med.uni-goettingen.de
Staff members
- Alexander Kratzenberg, M.Sc.
- Dr. med. Imke Amanzada
- Vincent Buschatzky