JONATHAN SAVITZ

The Savitz Laboratory

Our Research Approach

Depression is one of the most serious and common psychiatric disorders, yet we know very little about the underlying disease process. Our lab is examining whether inflammation of the brain is one cause of depression. In particular, we are using blood-based immune markers, viral antibodies, and experimental medicine designs to examine how inflammatory processes affect the healthy and diseased brain. Ultimately, this research can help to identify new treatments for depression that are based on modifying the inflammatory process.

CONTACT DR. SAVITZ

Research Program Highlights

Just as a cardiac stress test can be used to identify abnormalities of the heart that are not visible at rest, so to can “stressing” the immune system enable us to detect hidden factors that may lead to maladaptive immune responses. We use low-dose endotoxin, part of the cell wall of gram-negative bacteria, to “trick” the immune system into launching a transient inflammatory response. To our knowledge, we are the first group in the world to perform an endotoxin challenge on depressed volunteers. Knowledge gained from this study will help us understand the mechanisms through which an inflammatory stimulus alters brain activity in a way that makes some people vulnerable to developing depression in the setting of inflammation.

Herpesvirus infections in healthy adults were traditionally considered to be harmless but there is emerging evidence that these viruses may not be completely benign. Herpesviruses lie dormant until they are reactivated by physical or psychological stressors. Conceivably, this periodic viral replication may contribute to inflammatory responses that lead to depression. We are testing this hypothesis by evaluating the link between herpesvirus infections and brain abnormalities and have initiated a small clinical trial to test whether an anti-viral agent has therapeutic benefits in depression.

Exercise is known to have anti-depressant effects, but little is known about the biological pathways underpinning these therapeutic properties. We are conducting an acute exercise challenge in combination with ibuprofen/placebo to identify the immunological pathways and neural circuits that mediate the acute anti-depressant effects of exercise in participants with bipolar depression.

Scientific Background

Dr. Savitz received an undergraduate degree (B.S.) in psychology and genetics from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, performed further graduate work in neuropsychology, including a clinical internship, and then completed a PhD on the genetics of bipolar disorder at the University of Cape Town in 2006. He subsequently completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is currently a Principal Investigator at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research and an Associate Professor at The University of Tulsa. Jonathan has conducted a number of innovative studies in the fields of psychoneuroimmunology and immunopsychiatry, publishing over 150 scientific papers (>75 as first or senior author) which have been cited more than 12,000 times. He has been the PI on several NIH grants, is a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), and is a standing member of the NPAS study section at the NIH.