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MOOD DISORDERS CENTER

SCIENCE | AWARENESS | CLINICAL CARE

More than 20 million Americans suffer from depression or bipolar disorder. The World Health Organization’s most recent global burden of disease study cites depression as the leading cause of disability worldwide.

So curing these brain diseases in the best way we think possible—by understanding their genetics and biology and by translating sound clinical research into good care---is our constant goal.

Our Hopkins colleagues in the war on cancer have cut a path to its cure: We’re amazed to watch them type a patient’s tumor markers into a computer and get a printout of options that let them tailor treatment and extend life as never before.

That gives us hope as we begin our process.

Like our oncology friends, we must wage our war on three fronts: science, awareness and clinical care.

And like them, we realize that only a strong organization that fosters collaborative research will succeed.

That’s why Hopkins’ Mood Disorders Center is necessary. It provides a setting for collaboration, sound clinical teaching, a site for clinical trials, a place large enough to attract the creativity and spark the drive that will ultimately bring our patients what they need.

J. Raymond DePaulo, M.D.
Henry Phipps Professor,
Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Sciences

Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

A Future Worth Optimism…

Should the pace of research keep up, here’s a possible not-so-very-distant scenario. It begins ordinarily enough, with a man in his 30s who arrives at Hopkins, apparently depressed.

We ask for a blood sample.

But the first difference lies in a rapid gene screening and sequencing that reveal his as a particular subtype of depression, one fairly responsive to a new, tailored antidepressant. A printout tells us to titrate it to a dose best for him.

After a few sessions of transcranial magnetic stimulation as additional therapy, his mood lightens. And, as his genes confer a greater susceptibility to environmental stressors, our patient also enters a program of psychotherapy.

With the science of these illnesses becoming clear, societal attitudes have changed. Now our patient feels less stress discussing his illness at the office. He readily takes his medication because, as the depression wanes—our functional MRI confirms—he feels much more his creative, exuberant self.

We don’t think our vision so unrealistic.

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