Sat. Oct 12, 2019 8:40 AM - 10:20 AM Room 6 (401+402)

Organizer / Chair: Toshitaka NABESHIMA (Graduate School of Health Science, Fujita Health University, Japan), Co-chair: Yukihiro OHNO (Department of Pharmacology, Osaka University of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Japan), Discussants: ‌Wen-Sung LAI (Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan), Ming-Huan CHAN (Institute of Neuroscience, National Chengchi University, Taiwan)

Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder are major neuropsychiatric disorders in world-wide. The patients with neuropsychiatric disorders should continuously take drugs to control their mental condition. Because many of the currently used neuropsychiatric drugs are symptomatic treatments that suppress the receptors and transporters. There are also severely ill patients who show poor or partial response to the drugs even if they receive appropriate medication. The key to preventing and curing neuropsychiatric disorders is to elucidate the mechanisms at molecular level. In this symposium, we will invite four speakers from Korea and Japan, and discuss about translational research for new drug development in neuropsychiatric disorders.
Professor Kim is neuropsychopharmacologist and toxicologist. He found that indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) gene play a crucial role in the neuropsychotoixc conditions. IDO1 is the first and rate-limiting enzyme in the L-kynurenine pathway and is induced by several pro-inflammatory cytokines, including IFNs, tumor necrosis factor, and interleukin 6. He will discuss novel drug target for bipolar disorder and serotonin syndrome.
Dr. Nagai is neuropsychopharmacologist in schizophrenia research field. His collaborators recently identified novel copy-number variation (CNV) of several gene associated with the disease, including ARHGAP10, a member of the RhoGAP superfamily. They also generated a mouse model of a patient with a CNV in the ARHGAP10 gene. He will provide exciting results regarding novel animal model of schizophrenia developed from reverse translational research.
Dr. Kunisawa is one of the excellent young investigators in the research field of major depressive disorder. The metabolism of L-tryptophan (TRP), an essential amino acid, in extrahepatic tissues proceeds through the L-kynurenine (KYN) and the serotonin (5-HT) pathways. His research group found that TRP metabolism plays a critical role in depression induced by IFN-α and physical stressor.
Professor Noda is a neuropsychopharmacologist in the basic fields of psychiatric disorders (neurodevelopmental disorders, schizophrenia, stress-related disorders etc). Abnormalities of glutamate transporters (GLTs) cause some neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ADHD and schizophrenia. He found that functional roles of glial GLT in neurodevelopment under the physiological and pathological conditions using the mice with varying expression of transporter. His model may provide one useful tool for elucidating the contribution of glutamate dysfunction to the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders, and glial GLT will be a new target molecule for their therapeutics.
These findings suggest that IDO, ARHGAP10, TRP and GLT are novel target for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders.