Sunday, February 27, 2011
Brenda Penninx, full professor of psychiatry of the VUmc and leading scientist within the Centre for Medical Systems Biology (CMSB) subject 'depression', has won a vici grant from ZonMw worth 1,25 million euros.
Depression increases the risk of many aging-related conditions including functional and cognitive decline, cancer, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and overall mortality. Main topic of the research of prof. Penninx is to investigate whether depression is correlated with (or even causing) an increased biologing aging process through which health decline might occur. The patients that are studied longitudinally come from the socalled NESDA (Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety) cohort.
This study will extend our knowledge about underlying biological mechanisms explaining why depressed persons are more prone towards age-related health decline, and will provide indications to what extent these mechanisms can be reversed by two different depression interventions.
read more (in Dutch)
Dr Gisela Terwindt from the LUMC and researcher from CMSB has also won a 800,000 euro Vidi grant for her research into migraine.
Almost 25 percent of the migraine patients suffer from daily attacks. Overmedication and depressions play key roles in the migraine frequency. Terwindt's research, entitled 'Kopzorgen', focuses on the mechanisms, treatment and consequences of chronic migraines.
read more (in Dutch)
see also an article published on the January 2001 edition of Cicero (page 19), a publication of LUMC