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Patients' Needs
About one in every eight women
can expect to develop clinical depression during their lifetime, while prevalences
in males are only slightly less. Schizophrenia and bipolar illness each affects about
one percent of the general population, causing the loss of the ability to work, to
have close relationships, and to have a fulfilling life. Available treatments, though
effective, are incomplete and there is no cure for a considerable proportion of
patients.
Psychiatrists' Daily Efforts
Psychotropic drugs have been designed to treat the "average" patient. Yet
empirical data suggest that this "average patient" is rarely encountered
in real life. Thus, it is impossible today to make any predictions of
whether or not a particular patient will respond to a particular treatment.
Research Topics
Our research addresses the extent to which genetic vulnerability and resilience factors
along with their interactions constitute multigenic inheritance of psychiatric disorders
across ethnicities, thus implicating universal targets for treatment.
The development of objective laboratory methods will enable a highly individualized
treatment regimen, so that an unnecessarily long treatment duration or an unnecessary
exposure to ineffective drugs and unwanted side effects can be avoided.
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