Dr. Du and his lab evolve to combine MRI/MRS technical developments with translational neuroimaging from bench to bedside.  The goal is to outline the trajectories of biological abnormalities, and to identify biomarkers of disease progression and treatment response for neuropsychiatric disorders.

To date, a growing body of evidence suggests that a central “immuno-oxidative” pathway involving neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and neurotransmission dysfunction, plays a key role and contribute to distributed brain circuits in neuropsychiatric diseases. Several antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, or glutamate-targeted medications have been tested in clinical trials with mixed results. The underlying molecular mechanisms driving these interventions and whether these intervention approaches accomplish their biochemical goals in the human brain remain elusive, partly because few has methods of in vivo comprehensive molecular assays to measure the impact of interventions on the hub of this “immuno-oxidative” pathway. To that end, we devolved novel approaches to directly quantify in vivo glutamate, GSH (antioxidant), energy metabolic rates and redox ratio (i.e. NAD+/NADH) in the same experimental session for the first time. Our technical achievements have laid the foundation for investigating neurobiological mechanisms and clinical effects of interventions (e.g. nicotinamide riboside) using in vivo state-of-the-art neuroimaging approaches.

In addition, we are developing the novel neuroimaging methods to better insight into the relationship between neuronal circuits and E/I balance as well as the role of glutamatergic/GABAergic and dopamine functions in neuropsychiatric diseases, exploring the role of glial cells and neurons in discrete brain regions in psychotic and mood disorders.