Research Project

Leopard Predict

Predicting antidepressant treatment response using neuroimaging and physical activity data

Leopard Predict Project

Project Overview

It usually takes around eight weeks to determine if an antidepressant drug is effective in depressed patients. Furthermore, after one year, treatment with antidepressants is effective in about half of all treated depressed patients. In the Leopard Predict study, we will determine if we can predict antidepressant-treatment response in depressed patients (18-60 years) within two weeks of starting with antidepressant treatment using resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI) data.

We will explore if integration of physical activity parameters can improve prediction of antidepressant treatment effectivity using rsfMRI data. This approach could significantly reduce the time needed to identify effective treatments for individual patients, leading to faster symptom relief and improved outcomes.

Research Methodology

Our research methodology combines advanced neuroimaging with physical activity monitoring:

  • Resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI) to assess brain connectivity patterns before and after treatment initiation
  • Wearable accelerometers to continuously monitor physical activity levels and patterns
  • Standardized clinical assessments to measure depression severity and treatment response