January Webinar with Ana Cristina Andreazza

January Webinar with Ana Cristina Andreazza, Pharm, PhD

Title: Oxidative Stress and Antioxidants: What is the relevance for bipolar disorder? 

Join us for a Webinar on January 17th at 11:00am PST

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/161676558

I started my career as Pharmacist and moved to science to study the antioxidant properties of flavonoids at the Biotechnology Institute at University of Caxias do Sul, Brazil. Over the years I became interested in the involvement of redox mechanisms in the brain, which motivated me to pursue a doctorate degree. As part of my thesis, I investigated the influence of oxidative stress damage in major psychiatric disorders (i.e bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.) To follow my goals in research, in 2008 I accept a postdoctoral position at University of British Columbia to study the oxidative damage to specific mitochondrial proteins in postmortem prefrontal cortex from patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Currently, I am Scientist at Centre for Addiction Mental Health and an Assistant Professor at Department of Psychiatry at University of Toronto. I am still fascinated by the brain and its redox biology and my research line is now focused in exploring how redox modification to proteins change relevant pathways to synapse modulation

Presentation Description:

The current diagnostic criteria for psychiatric diagnoses are based purely on self-report and behavioral observation and lack substantial biological validation. This contrasts sharply with several other areas of medicine where biological tests, based on validated biomarkers, aid in diagnostic and treatment decisions. There is thus a pressing need to identify biomarkers reflecting underlying pathophysiologic processes for the majority of psychiatric disorders. Development of biomarkers will help facilitate more accurate diagnosis of these disorders than reliance on observation of behavioral measures alone, prevention of illness progression and ultimately provide biological targets to optimize treatment choice and rational design of new treatments. Thus, decreasing the associated-disease health costs. Extensive investigation has been pursued along the past 50 years to try to identify the etiology and pathophysiology of major psychosis. However, more recently attention has been growing for the involvement of oxidative stress in bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SCZ), with studies demonstrating increased markers of oxidative stress in the brain and peripheral blood cells of both BD and SCZ. In this symposium, Dr Andreazza will start by discussing recent results demonstrating that down regulation of mitochondrial electron transport chain, the main source of reactive oxygen species, differs between BD and SCZ. Then, Dr. Andreazza will move to discuss the crosstalk between brain and periphery findings of oxidative stress in major psychosis. In fact, recent results from our group show that markers of early lipid peroxidation (lipid hydroperoxides) have a negative relationship with white matter damage, evaluate by diffusion tension analysis, which might offer a biomarker of crosstalk between white matter abnormalities and peripheral measurement of oxidative stress.

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