Gabriel Dichter (UNC Psychiatry), Crystal Schiller (UNC Psychiatry), and David Lalush (Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering) have been awarded a 5-year $3.9-million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to use simultaneous positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging (PET-MR) to examine the effects of estradiol on reward circuitry functioning in a transdiagnostic sample of women with perimenopausal-onset anhedonia and psychosis.
The project will evaluate whether the mesolimbic dopamine system is impaired in perimenopausal-onset anhedonia and psychosis as well as the effects of estradiol on striatal responses to rewards measured by fMRI and striatal dopamine functioning measured by PET. The hope is that this project will increase our understanding of anhedonia and psychosis vulnerability during the menopause transition and have the potential to deliver validated molecular imaging targets to use in future mechanistic trials of novel treatments for perimenopausal-onset psychiatric disorders.
Co-investigators on the project include Fred Jarskog (UNC Psychiatry), Erin Walsh (UNC Psychatry), Eric Smith (UNC Radiology), and Lauren Schiff (UNC Obstetrics and Gynecology).