Our projects

MOODINFLAME

apDia is one of 18 partners involved in the Moodinflame project, which is a large-scale medical scientific project funded by the EU.

The project's concept is that major mood disorders, like bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and postpartum psychoses, are the result of a systemic abnormal condition of proneness to inflammation.

In that view major mood disorders are thus largely caused by a mild chronic pro-inflammatory state of certain brain areas important for mood regulation, such as the limbic system.

The systematic state of proneness to inflammation also disturbs:

• the hormonal systems that regulate inflammations and are involved in stress biology reactions
• the breakdown metabolism of tryptophan, an important precursor for the neurotransmitter serotonin

In this way a mild chronic inflammation of the limbic system is linked to a defective stress responsiveness and a shortage of serotonin in certain brain areas in patients with a major mood disorder.

The Moodinflame consortium aims to achieve the following main objectives (before 2013):

• the development of blood tests and brain scans to identify mild chronic inflammation in patients and individuals at risk for a major mood disorder
• the establishment of a treatment with anti-inflammatory medicines for patients and individuals at risk for a major mood disorder
• the exploration of animal models of major mood disorders

The role of apDia in this project is to sub-coordinate the tryptophan research group, to establish an External Quality Assurance Scheme for conventional measurement of tryptophan and kynurenines using HPLC or MS, and to establish diagnostic tools and cost-effective and user-friendly assay kits for analysis of tryptophan and kynurenine metabolites.