The motivational mechanisms driving the antidepressant effects of ketamine (360G-Wellcome-200934_Z_16_Z)

£80,000

Background The mechanisms driving ketamine’s efficacy in treatment-resistant depression are unknown, but this treatment has been shown to elicit changes in the brain’s reward system. Together with the observation that anhedonia is specifically alleviated by ketamine, this finding has prompted the hypothesis that changes in brain and behavioural processes related to motivational processing may be important in the antidepressant action of ketamine. Main hypotheses Changes in motivational processes underlie the anti-anhedonic effect of ketamine in depression. Depressed patients experiencing a greater antidepressant response should exhibit greater neurocognitive changes in motivational processes following treatment. Research and educational goals - Method: Simultaneous fMRI+EEG imaging pre-, during, post- repeated ketamine administration and at 4 week follow-up. - Educational outcomes: Multimodal scanning, computational modelling, establishing task psychometrics. - Method: Behavioural testing in healthy and depressed individuals pre- and post- ketamine infusion combined with high-resolution fMRI. - Educational outcomes: fMRI data collection and connectivity analyses. Potential time line of proposed research Year 1 UCL: Develop behavioural tasks and neuroimaging methods; initiate tasks at the NIMH. Year 2 NIMH: Run tasks in healthy and depressed individuals during ketamine infusion and concurrent fMRI+EEG imaging. Year 3 NIMH : Retest patients at phase 3 and 4. Year 4 UCL: Neuroimaging analyses and writing thesis. Year 4 UCL: Neuroimaging analyses and writing thesis.

Where is this data from?

This data was originally published by The Wellcome Trust. If you see something about your organisation or the funding it has received on this page that doesn't look right you can submit a grantee amendment request. You can hover over codes from standard codelists to see the user-friendly name provided by 360Giving.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded 80000
Applicant Surname Mkrtchian
Approval Committee WT/NIH Four Year PhD Programme Advisory Committee
Award Date 2016-01-25T00:00:00+00:00
Financial Year 2015/16
Grant Programme: Title WT/NIH Four Year PhD Studentship
Internal ID 200934/Z/16/Z
Lead Applicant Miss Anahit Mkrtchian
Partnership Name Wellcome Trust-NIH PhD Studentships
Partnership Value 80000
Planned Dates: End Date 2021-09-30T00:00:00+00:00
Planned Dates: Start Date 2016-10-01T00:00:00+00:00
Recipient Org: Country United Kingdom
Region Greater London
Sponsor(s) Prof Neil Burgess