Research project
The neurobiology of depression and the relation between stress, mental health, ageing and chronic illness
I want to understand the overlap between physical health, mental health, and healthy aging and whether/how stress (behaviorally and biologically) may tie these concepts together.
- Contact
- Marc Molendijk
Current projects I work on include studies that ( A) address the link between trauma/stress exposure with physical and mental health, ( B) assess neurobiological changes (mainly brain-derived neurotrophic factor) as a consequence of various forms of treatment and of stress, and ( C) decipher whether the link between stress exposure (broadly defined from social economic adversity to physical abuse) and poor physical and mental health may be explained by behavior in a linear or interactive manner. An add-on of my work is that it uses well-powered studies ( e.g., NESDA: www.nesda.nl, N ~ 2,900; Predimed: http://www.predimed.es, N ~ 7,000; and SUN-Navarra: http://www.unav.edu/departamento/preventiva/infogensun, N ~ 20,000) and/or meta-analyses.