Brain Medicine Volume 1: Issue 2

EDITORIAL

Medication-induced sterol disruption: An overlooked threat to brain development and public health 1

Julio Licinio

INNOVATORS & IDEAS: RISING STARS

Munir Gunes Kutlu: Exploring the neural mechanisms of learning and social behaviors – A scientist's journey and perspective 4

Munir Gunes Kutlu

Alessandra Borsini: What neuroinflammation has to do with depression and how nutrition can play a beneficial role 8

Alessandra Borsini

INNOVATORS & IDEAS: RESEARCH LEADERS

Udo Dannlowski: Brain structure and function in the long-term course of mental disorders 11

Udo Dannlowski

Vicki L. Clifton: Stress, sex, and the placenta: its role in fetal

Introduction

Scientific progress often demands that we revisit comfortable assumptions. Occasionally, new data do more than inform—they provoke. The article by Korade and Mirnics in this issue of Brain Medicine is a rare and necessary provocation (1). It unveils a silent hazard: that a broad array of widely prescribed drugs, developed and approved for disparate conditions, may converge on a shared off-target toxicity. These medications disrupt sterol biosynthesis—an essential metabolic process underpinning neural development—and do so in ways that mirror the biochemical footprint of devastating genetic syndromes.

Figure 1.Medication-induced disruption of sterol biosynthesis poses significant

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Dr. Munir “Gunes” Kutlu, Assistant Professor at the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CSAR) and the Department of Neural Sciences at Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine, investigates the neural mechanisms underlying associative learning, mainly focusing on reward, fear, and social interaction. Drawing from his computational neuroscience training at Duke University and postdoctoral work at Temple and Vanderbilt Universities, Dr. Kutlu combines systems neuroscience, computational approaches, and behavioral analysis to understand how our brains process environmental associations and how these processes can become maladaptive in disease states. His laboratory, dedicated to “bridging the brain-behavior gap,” fosters a collaborative environment that nurtures the next generation of neuroscientists while pursuing innovative neural circuit analysis approaches in reward and aversive learning contexts. In this Genomic Press interview, Dr. Kutlu shares his insights on these fascinating aspects of behavioral neuroscience and his laboratory's mission to advance our understanding of neural circuit function in health and disease.

Alessandra Borsini is a Lecturer in Psychoneuroimmunology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London. Her research interest focuses on the role of inflammation and stress on brain neurogenic alterations, particularly in the context of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, and on the ability of psychotropic, anti-inflammatory, and nutrition-based treatments to prevent such alterations. She has been a member of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Immunopsychiatry Consortium, the AMBROSIAC ERA-NET/MRC Consortium, and the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Immuno-Neuropsychiatry Network Core Group. She has received various awards, including the Psychoneuroimmunology Award from the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society (PNIRs) and the Preclinical Psychopharmacology Award from the British Association for Psychopharmacology (BAP). As of April 2024, Dr Borsini has published over 50 papers, with a current H-index of 25, and has been the recipient of both national and international research grants from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Wellcome Trust, MRC, European Commission and Rosetrees Trust. She is part of the Editorial Board of several journals, including Brain, Behavior, and, Immunity, Frontiers in Neuroscience, and Frontiers in Psychiatry. She is also the programme leader for the new MSc in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mind-Body Interface launching this September 2024 at the IoPPN. Dr Borsini is passionate about public engagement. To discuss her research or topics broadly related to mental health, she has made multiple media appearances in newspapers, including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and The Independent, and radio and TV programmes, such as BBC Radio 4 Today, BBC Radio 4 All in the Mind, and BBC One Health: Truth or Scare. Dr Borsini graciously answered the Genomic Press Interview, providing our readers with reflections on her personal and professional journey.

Udo Dannlowski is a psychiatrist, psychologist, and translational neuroimaging researcher whose work intersects clinical psychiatry, genetics, data science, and systems neuroscience. His academic endeavors are driven by a commitment to unraveling the complex biological and genetic mechanisms underlying long-term disease trajectories of affective disorders, including depression and anxiety. Dannlowski's use of brain imaging technologies, such as multimodal MRI, to explore the structural and functional anomalies in patients with these disorders in longitudinal cohorts over several years of follow-up with machine learning techniques has significantly advanced our understanding of brain mechanisms in mental disorders. Dannlowski is recognized for contributing to psychiatry and neuroscience, substantially impacting theoretical understanding and clinical practice. Since 2019, he has been heading the Institute for Translational Psychiatry in Münster, Germany, together with the clinical Section for Transition Psychiatry at the Department for Mental Health. We are privileged to present the Genomic Press interview with Professor Dannlowski, who has offered to share insights from his esteemed career and personal experiences for our readers' benefit.

Cover-to-Cover

Table of Contents

Medication-induced sterol disruption: An overlooked threat to brain development and public health

Introduction

Munir Gunes Kutlu: Exploring the neural mechanisms of learning and social behaviors – A scientist's journey and perspective

Alessandra Borsini: What neuroinflammation has to do with depression and how nutrition can play a beneficial role

Udo Dannlowski: Brain structure and function in the long-term course of mental disorders

Vicki L. Clifton: Stress, sex, and the placenta: its role in fetal and child development

Euripedes C. Miguel: Risk factors for obsessive-compulsive and other mental health disorders and their treatment and public policy implications

Celso Arango: The future of psychiatry inevitably depends on primary prevention

Nancy Jane Rothwell: Brain inflammation and the path to leadership

Sterol biosynthesis disruption by common prescription medications: critical implications for neural development and brain health

CD2AP in Alzheimer's disease: Key mechanisms and therapeutic potential

Maternal immune activation impairs hippocampal pyramidal neuron excitability in newborn rat offspring: Implications for neurodevelopmental disorders

Manic symptoms in schizophrenia spectrum disorders

Barbara Franke: Understanding the biological pathways from genes to altered behaviour in neurodevelopmental conditions like ADHD – paving the way for improved understanding and care in psychiatry

Una cuchara de plástico en tu cerebro: The calamity of a plastic spoon in your brain

5′LysTTT tRNA fragments support survival of botulinum-intoxicated neurons by blocking ferroptosis

Dynamic memory enqrams: Unveiling the celular mechanisms of memory encoding, consolidation, generalizaton, and updating in the brain

Prader-Willi syndrome: Genetics, clinical symptoms, and model systems