Deciphering Depression

Unraveling Mind-Body-Brain Interactions

Welcome to the Opel Lab

Where our mission is to unravel the interactions between the body and brain in affective disorders. We integrate clinical & neuroscientific expertise with state-of-the-art data science to

  1. generate insights on the risk factors and neurobiological mechanisms that determine individual disease trajectories in affective disorders and

  2. transfer these insights into optimized diagnostic, treatment and prevention in clinical routine

Our research focuses on the following key areas

Brain

We investigate maladaptive neural circuits that mediate the relationship between risk factors and symptom trajectory in depression.

Body

We examine the relationship between immunometabolic and affective disorders.

Digital phenotyping

We develop solutions for ecological valid longitudinal monitoring of depressive symptoms.

Personalization

We aim to achieve individual risk profiling and predictive modelling in clinical routine.

Meet our multidisciplinary team

Consisting of medical doctors, clinical psychologists, computer scientists, and biochemists.

Univ.-Prof. Dr. med.

Nils Opel

Leiter der AG für Translationale Psychiatrie, Leitender Oberarzt der Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Universitätsklinikum Jena sowie Universitätsprofessor der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Dipl.-Inf.

Daniel Jakob Emden

Development and maintenance of the ReMAP app, enhancing its capabilities to collect mobile sensing and EMA data for various research studies. Currently focusing on the analysis of speech samples to gain insights into mental health conditions from spoken text.
Dr. rer. medic. Dipl.-Inform.

Rogério Blitz

Development of digital phenotyping methods to accurately capture behavioral patterns and mood fluctuations, enabling individualized diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses.
M.Sc. Psychologin, Psychologische Psychotherapeutin

Maike Richter

Identifying predictors for treatment response in psychiatric real-world samples, digital phenotyping and longitudinal monitoring.
M.Sc. Psychologin, Psychologische Psychotherapeutin

Janette Ratzsch

Identifying predictors, such as childhood maltreatment and narcissistic personality factors, for treatment response in real-world psychiatric samples, assessing short- and long-term outcomes.
Dr. med.

Lavinia-Alexandra Steinmann

Digital cohorts for monitoring mental health in the general population (DigiHero). Investigation of altered brain circuits in Major depressive disorder with comorbid obesity / alcohol use disorder to optimize treatment outcome.
B.Sc. Biochemie/Molekularbiologie; M.Sc. Molecular Medicine

Moritz Rau

Investigating the peripheral immune response in MDD patients using multi-parametric Flow Cytometry. Biological characterization of MDD patients after different treatment responses.
M.Sc. Psychologie

Lara Gutfleisch

Research into digital phenotyping, focusing on the use of GPS data from ReMAP to predict mental health conditions, particularly depression. Investigating the relationship between step count and depression in the context of smartphone sensing.
Staatsexamen (Medizin)

Luise V. Claaß

Assessing post-infectious neuropsychiatric sequelae, predicting treatment success in affective disorders with neurostimulation and neuroimaging, and exploring brain structural changes linked to obesity and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Staatsexamen (Medizin)

Anna Fleuchaus

Investigation of the relationship between nocturnal rest/activity patterns and variable symptom clusters in patients with MDD by analyzing passive ReMAP data collected from smartphones. Further, the prediction of symptom clusters by specific rest variables.
Dr. med. / Staatsexamen (Medizin)

Jonathan Mathias Faßhauer

Investigation of clinical data and psychiatric care structures in the context of health services research. Currently expanding my expertise in the biological characterization of bipolar depression.
Wiss. MA / Koordinatorin

Eva Rafflenbeul

Identifying predictors, such as childhood maltreatment and narcissistic personality factors, for treatment response in real-world psychiatric samples, assessing short- and long-term outcomes.
Doktorand

Franziska Schick

Masterarbeit

Emily Krain

Doktorand

Joane Müller

Doktorand

Götz Von Waldstein

Stud. Hilfskraft / Bachelorarbeit

Jule Schubert

Stud. Hilfskraft

Fabiana Lazur

Stud. Hilfskraft

Antonia Perschke

Stud. Hilfskraft

Nico Salig

Stud. Hilfskraft

Johanna Andres

Stud. Hilfskraft

Marie Balkhaus

Stud. Hilfskraft

Sandra Zwoch

Stud. Hilfskraft

Vanessa Winkler

Stud. Hilfskraft

Jakob Maidowski

Stud. Hilfskraft

Anna Leonora Rautenberg