Hailan Hu
Professor
Zhejiang University
Hailan Hu is Professor at School of Brain Science and Brain Medicine at Zhejiang University, and director of the MOE Frontier Research Center of Brain & Brain-machine Integration. Her laboratory seeks to understand how emotional and social behaviors are encoded and regulated in the brain, with a main focus on the neural circuitry underlying depression and social dominance. She is a recipient of the IBRO-Kemali International Prize for Basic and Clinical Neuroscience and Ho Leung Ho Lee Award.
abstract
Neural Mechanism of Depression: What we Learn from Ketamine
Major depression is well known for its slow progression, complex symptoms, and multiplex genetic and epigenetic factors, making it a daunting task to understand the underlying etiologies. In the past two decades, the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist ketamine, has revolutionized depression treatment because of its robust, rapid and sustained antidepressant effects. How does ketamine work in such a rapid and long-lasting fashion? Studies related to this question should not be considered as standard pharmacological research on mechanism of action, but more importantly, straight roads towards the core brain mechanisms of depression. In this talk, I will discuss how blockade of bursts in the brain’s antireward center, the lateral habenula, may underlie both the rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of ketamine.