MRFF funding for psychedelic psychotherapy in treatment-resistant depression

Psilocybin is a naturally derived psychedelic that can

potentially assist people with treatment-resistant depression.
Image: ACS

The Medical Research Future Fund Clinical Trials Activity Initiative has awarded $2.7M for Innovative Therapies for Mental Illness to a Monash University-led team, to evaluate the efficacy of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in treatment-resistant depression.   

New study to look at TMS treatment for OCD

The benefits of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) on people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is the focus of a collaborative study between Monash University and the Epworth Centre for Innovation in Mental Health (ECIMH).

• See full story
• For more information on the trial or to register as a participant please click here.

MRFF grant for new national collaboration for mental health clinical trial development

A new national collaboration to transform the way mental health treatment is developed and tested will be led by Deakin University and key partners including Swinburne and Monash Universities, with $12 million support from the Federal Government’s Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).

The Mental Health Australia General Clinical Trial Network (MAGNET) will start as a five-year project that will be funded through the MRFF’s Million Minds Mission, as recently announced in the Federal Budget.

Congratulations to CCS's NHMRC Investigator grant recipients!

L-R top row: Prof Helmut Butzkueven, Prof Paul Fitzgerald,
Dr Emma Halmos. L-R bottom row: Prof Anne Holland,
Dr Jason Ong, A/Prof Anneke van der Walt

NHMRC Investigator grants were announced this morning by Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, Monash receiving in total close to $47M. See Monash announcement.

Twenty-six researchers from the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences received funding for their projects. See Faculty story.

Congratulations to Central Clinical School's NHMRC Investigator grant recipients! See more about the CCS projects, below. The grant income for the school from this round totals $10M across the period 2021-2025.

Commiserations to our researchers whose grants were ranked very highly, but nonetheless missed out.

MAPrc ear canal invention a new tool in identifying depression

by Anne Crawford

Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder (or MDD) can appear similar in patients but distinguishing them is vital for clinicians to give the right and most efficacious treatment.

Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc) researchers have developed a novel way of doing this – by recording the electrical activity from the outer ear canal. Their findings were published recently in a paper in The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry.

Differences between male and female brains in autism

Dr Melissa Kirkovski

by Anne Crawford

Australian males are estimated to be four times more likely than females to be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The mechanisms that make them more prone to the condition are currently a hot topic of research in the field. 

A former Central Clinical School (CCS) graduate student was part of a study by the MonashAlfred Psychiatry research centre (MAPrc), the CCS and others that found gender differences in a region in the brain implicated in social understanding – a core part of impairment in people with ASD. The research was part of a PhD thesis that later earned Dr Melissa Kirkovski an international award.

Congratulations to 2016 MIME Seed Fund recipients!

Magdalena Plebanski (seated)
has won a MIME seed grant

The Monash Institute of Medical Engineering (MIME) has awarded over $800,000 in seed funding, and a further $150,000 has been co-committed by CSIRO. 16 prize winners were announced. See detail on the MIME news blog. Congratulations to all involved. Central Clinical School researchers, champions and collaborators are bolded in the table below.

Researchers call for more evidence for TMS guidelines for pain

TMS, a non-invasive therapy, uses magnetic
fields to stimulate brain nerve cells.

by Anne Crawford

Monash researchers investigating Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) therapy have responded to an international paper on proposed guidelines for pain treatment research using the technique by calling for more evidence.

The original paper was published in the journal Pain following a workshop sponsored by Harvard's Radcliffe Institute, which solicited advice from world experts in TMS, pain research and clinical trials. It recommended that researchers standardise and document parameters for research into TMS, a non-invasive technique that uses a magnetic field to electrically stimulate parts of the brain via a small coil placed on the patient’s scalp.

Recent CCS publications: Week ending 27 May 2016

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Recent publications for CCS affiliated authors:

Kazemi R, Rostami R, Khomami S, Horacek J, Brunovsky M, Novak T, Fitzgerald PB.
Electrophysiological correlates of bilateral and unilateral repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with bipolar depression. Psychiatry Res. 2016 Apr; 240:364-375.
doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2016.04.061.

Levin N, Spencer A, Harrison SJ, Chauhan D, Burrows FJ, Anderson KC, Reich SD, Richardson PG, Trikha M. Marizomib irreversibly inhibits proteasome to overcome compensatory hyperactivation in multiple myeloma and solid tumour patients. Br J Haematol. 2016 May (online).
doi: 10.1111/bjh.14113.

Tan WS, Chow EP, Fairley CK, Chen MY, Bradshaw CS, Read TR. Sensitivity of HIV rapid tests compared to fourth generation enzyme immunoassays or HIV RNA tests - a systematic review and meta-analysis. AIDS. 2016 Apr (online).
doi: 10.1097/QAD.0000000000001134

Recent CCS publications: Week ending 22 April 2016

Transcranial stimulation

Recent publications with Central Clinical School affiliated authors:

Duan M, Steinfort DP, Smallwood D, Hew M, Chen W, Ernst M, Irving LB, Anderson GP, Hibbs ML. CD11b immunophenotyping identifies inflammatory profiles in the mouse and human lungs. Mucosal Immunol. 2016 Mar;9(2):550-63. 
Link: doi 10.1038/mi.2015.84.

Fitzgerald, P.B., Hoy, K.E., Elliot, D., McQueen, S., Wambeek, L.E., Daskalakis, Z.J. A negative double-blind controlled trial of sequential bilateral rTMS in the treatment of bipolar depression. Journal of Affective Disorders (2016) 198 pp. 158 - 162
Link: doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2016.03.052
 
Lim HY, Ng C, Donnan G, Nandurkar H, Ho P. Ten years of cerebral venous thrombosis: male gender and myeloproliferative neoplasm is associated with thrombotic recurrence in unprovoked events. J Thromb Thrombolysis. 2016 Apr 16. [Epub ahead of print]
Link: PMID 27085541

Maller JJ, Anderson RJ, Thomson RH, Daskalakis ZJ, Rosenfeld JV, Fitzgerald PB. Occipital bending in schizophrenia. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2016 Apr 11. pii: 0004867416642023. [Epub ahead of print]
Link: PMID 27066817

Recent CCS publications: Week ending 15 April 2016

Figure 2 from the Darido publication: A schematic representation
of the cross-talk among key barrier genes, signaling transducers
and inflammatory factors

Recent publications with Central Clinical School affiliated authors:

Darido C, Georgy SR and Jane SM. The role of barrier genes in epidermal malignancy. Oncogene advance online publication 4 April 2016; 
Reference doi: 10.1038/onc.2016.84

de Valle E, Grigoriadis G, O'Reilly LA, Willis SN, Maxwell MJ, Corcoran LM, Tsantikos E, Cornish JK, Fairfax KA, Vasanthakumar A, Febbraio MA, Hibbs ML, Pellegrini M, Banerjee A, Hodgkin PD, Kallies A, Mackay F, Strasser A, Gerondakis S, Gugasyan R. NFκB1 is essential to prevent the development of multiorgan autoimmunity by limiting IL-6 production in follicular B cells. J Exp Med. 2016 Apr; 213:621-41. 
Reference doi: 10.1084/jem.20151182.

Philpott AL, Fitzgerald PB, Bailey NW, Churchyard A, Georgiou-Karistianis N, Cummins TD. A GABBR2 gene variant modifies pathophysiology in Huntington's disease. Neurosci Lett. 2016 Mar; 620:8-13.
Reference doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2016.03.038.

Prichard R, Rossi M, Muir J, Yao C, Whelan K, Lomer M. Fermentable oligosaccharide, disaccharide, monosaccharide and polyol content of foods commonly consumed by ethnic minority groups in the United Kingdom. Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2016 Mar:1-8 (online).  
Reference doi: 10.3109/09637486.2016.1163328

PhD in Clinical Neuroscience: Top Up Scholarship

We are seeking a high performing new PhD student to work in the Brain Stimulation group at the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc). The successful student will be supervised by Professor Paul Fitzgerald, a world leading brain stimulation expert. An APA scholarship (or equivalent) is required to apply, with a top-up scholarship to be awarded to the successful applicant ($8,500pa).

The project will utilise cutting edge neurotechnologies in order to investigate the mechanisms of therapeutic brain stimulation in psychiatric illness. This is a unique opportunity to join Australia’s leading research group spanning both basic and therapeutic brain stimulation research.

To apply send your CV and half-page statement on your research interests to Paul.Fitzgerald@monash.edu

For more information contact:

• Professor Paul Fitzgerald
• Paul.Fitzgerald@monash.edu
• www.maprc.org.au/Psychiatric-Neurotechnology

Mental health week 2015: Meditation for mindfulness vs meditation in religion or spiritual practice

What effect does the type of meditation have
on your brain?

Dr Neil Bailey from MAPrc has co-authored a study which explores whether mindfulness meditation has the same effect on the brain as meditation in spiritual practice.

According to the study, individuals who practise meditation religiously or spiritually and those who practise mindfulness meditation often report a greater sense of compassion, wellbeing, feeling of wholeness, decreased anxiety, and faster recovery from mental illness.

The report examines neuroimaging research that has focused on groups of meditating individuals, groups who engage in religious/spiritual practices, and research that has examined groups who perform both practices together, in an attempt to assess whether the effects on people's mindfulness are the same.

Mental health in the media with MAPrc

Prof Paul Fitzgerald explaining about

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

ABC Catalyst: Brain stimulation, broadcast 6 October 2015

Dr Maryanne Demasi explores magnetic transcranial stimulation or TMS with Professor Paul Fitzgerald. In the case of treating depression, the magnetic field is applied to the left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most responsible for happiness. Paul  says, "We tend to find about 45% of the patients we treat get a really substantial antidepressant response. Another 20% or so get benefit without it perhaps being life-changing. And about 35%, the patients don't respond at all."

Radio 3AW Talking health 4 October 2015: Professor Jayashri Kulkarni on 'borderline personality disorder' with Dr Sally Cockburn, how the term was invented 80 years ago and doesn't really help or explain the disorder (they don't quite have psychosis, they don't have depression, so it must be 'personality'!). Prof Kulkarni says that 85% of individuals diagnosed with the disorder had an early life trauma. They don't have a good internal sense of who they are. The major and most dangerous symptom is self harm.

Schizophrenia and working memory

Researchers at MAPrc have published a pair of research papers providing crucial proof-of-principle for a new treatment for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia.  Cognitive impairment is a core symptom of schizophrenia, occurring in greater than 80% of patients, and results in considerable functional disability. Despite the prevalence and significant burden associated with these symptoms, treatment options are few and of limited effectiveness.

Mental health week 2015: Schizophrenia and mirror system function

MAPrc student Dr Sophie Andrews supervised by Dr Kate Hoy, Professor Paul Fitzgerald, and Dr Richard Thomson recently authored a study which looked at patients with schizophrenia and whether their mirror neuron systems are impaired.

Dysfunctional mirror neuron systems have been proposed to contribute to the social cognitive deficits observed in schizophrenia. A few studies have explored mirror systems in schizophrenia using various techniques such as TMS (levels of motor resonance) or EEG (levels of mu suppression), with mixed results.

This study used a novel multimodal approach (eg: concurrent TMS and EEG) to further investigate mirror systems and social cognition in schizophrenia. Nineteen individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 19 healthy controls participated.

The study found that the schizophrenia group showed significant deficits in facial affect recognition and higher level theory of mind, compared to healthy controls. A significant positive relationship was revealed between mu suppression and motor resonance for the overall sample, indicating concurrent validity of these measures. Levels of mu suppression and motor resonance were not significantly different between groups.

These findings indicate that in stable outpatients with schizophrenia, mirror system functioning is intact. Therefore, their social cognitive difficulties may be caused by alternative pathophysiology.

Reference (full study): Andrews SC, Enticott PG, Hoy KE, Thomson RH, Fitzgerald PB. No evidence for mirror system dysfunction in schizophrenia from a multimodal TMS/EEG study. Psychiatry Research 228:3,pp.431–440, 30 Aug 2015.

Review publication: Measuring brain stimulation induced changes in cortical properties using TMS-EEG

TMS plus EEG equals more insight into
effects of brain stmulation

Neuromodulatory brain stimulation can induce plastic reorganization of cortical circuits that persist beyond the period of stimulation. Most of our current knowledge about the physiological properties has been derived from the motor cortex. The integration of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroencephalography (EEG) is a valuable method for directly probing excitability, connectivity and oscillatory dynamics of regions throughout the brain. Offering in depth measurement of cortical reactivity, TMS-EEG allows the evaluation of TMS-evoked components that may act as a marker for cortical excitation and inhibition.

Congratulations to Prof Paul Fitzgerald for award of NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship!

Professor Paul Fitzgerald, Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre, has been awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellowship for his research on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a therapy for people suffering with depression. The NHMRC award of $551,436 is for five years (2015-2019). TMS is a novel brain stimulation treatment showing promise for treatment-resistant and severe depression. See more about TMS.

Facebook app to monitor mental health: Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre

Researchers are looking at how social media can be used to prevent relapse in a person living with mental illness. The world-first pilot study will use a Facebook app to look at changes in a person’s social media interactions to predict when a person living with a mental illness is likely to experience a relapse. Professor Paul Fitzgerald, Deputy Director of the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Centre (MAPrc), said social media had the potential to be a life-saving way to prevent relapse for patients with bipolar disorder, a substantial clinical problem. See Monash story, 26/06/2014

2013 Faculty strategic grant award winners for Central Clinical School

Congratulations to the CCS researchers who are lead Chief Investigators for 2014 Faculty strategic grant awards. A total of 31 grants were made.

• Professor Paul Fitzgerald (MAPrc): Development of an enhanced magnetic field concentrator design for Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. See Brain Stimulation and Neuroscience page for both Paul's and Kate's research.

Dr Kate Hoy (MAPrc): Investigating optimal methods of cognitive enhancement: A comparison of the behavioural and biological effects of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation  

Prof Rob Medcalf (ACBD): Proving a smart drug delivery approach for the improved treatment of traumatic brain injury. See Laboratory page. 

See complete list of awards.