Future Meetings

2021: New Frontiers in Mood Disorders Research

The 2021 meeting will cover a range of areas from molecular to modeling to medications. In the past couple of years, we have seen the first robust gene discovery in major depression, and a vast expansion of comparable discovery in bipolar disorder. Some of this work has become the basis for new animal models of mood disorder. At the same time, work aimed at discovering patterns of brain activity that characterize mood disorders through functional MRI continues to become more sophisticated. Computational approaches to assessing this data and combining it with results from other assays promises to yield new diagnostic and prognostic tools. Computational methods are being deployed in other ways as well, such as in gathering information from electronic medical records and from cell phones to track mood trajectories and potentially provide early detection of a downturn. When depression proves to be resistant to established treatments, new pharmacologic and brain stimulation options are being tried. Efforts are underway to determine whether personalized approaches to these, and to conventional treatments, might help us get the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. This meeting will be a chance to assess the state-of-the-art in mood disorders research, and to exchange ideas about what should come next.

James "Jimmy" Potash, MD, MPH, APPA Vice President

Henry Phipps Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Department Director and Psychiatrist-in-Chief

Johns Hopkins Medicine