In this audio interview, Gonçalo explains how this grant will fund ongoing work on Lesional Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that is being developed in collaboration with several members of the Neuropsychiatry Unit. The proposal is to use the results from this work to test a new treatment for OCD through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which will include the Neuropsychiatry Unit’s first clinical trial using therapeutic TMS.
 

Listen to the full audio recording to find out more!

Through the provision of these two-year collaborative research grants, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) programme aims to accelerate cutting-edge research and technology in metabolism and metabolic physiology. The objective of these grants is to map, measure, and integrate metabolism across different scales—from molecules and organelles to cells and tissues—deepening our understanding of human biology, and to investigate the metabolic processes that maintain physiological homeostasis.

Understanding Treatment-Resistant Depression

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is a particularly challenging form of major depressive disorder. As Albino Oliveira-Maia, head of the Champalimaud Foundation’s Neuropsychiatry Unit and the study’s national coordinator for Portugal, explains, “TRD is defined as the persistence of depressive symptoms despite adequate courses of at least two different antidepressant medications”. Despite repeated therapeutic attempts, these patients’ depressive symptoms remain.