Teodor Postolache

University of Maryland, Baltimore | UMB · Department of Psychiatry

(1) Background: The present study aimed to investigate the onset of mental disorders in the six months following hospitalization for COVID-19 in people without a previous psychiatric history. (2) Methods: This was a longitudinal study carried out among adults who had been hospitalized due to COVID-19 infection. Six months after discharge, a series...

Compared to microbiomes on other skin sites, the microbiome of the human hand has been found to have greater variability across time. To increase understanding regarding the longitudinal transfer of the hand microbiome to objects in the built environment, and vice versa, twenty-two participants provided skin microbiome samples from their dominant h...

Objective: Alterations in the activity of the transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) generate defects previously associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. We investigated the role of the TCF7L2 gene in major depressive disorder (MDD), type 2 diabetes (T2D), and MDD-T2D comorbidity. We tested whether TCF7L2 is in linkage to and/or in linkage dise...

Background Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) are heterogeneous polygenic and complex disorders and are often comorbid. This shared comorbidity can be partially explained by several genetic, environmental, and hormonal factors such as hypercortisolism in MDD and a subset of patients with T2D. CRH receptor-1 (CRHR1) dysfunctio...

Objective: The dopamine receptor 2 (DRD2) binds dopamine in both central tissues (e.g., basal ganglia, pituitary gland) and peripheral tissues (e.g., adrenal gland, kidneys, intestine) and mediates dopamine actions in cognition, emotional processing, and prolactin-secretion inhibition and stimulation, and in DRD2-/- knockout mice insulin secretion...

Impairment in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and cortisol pathway may be major contributing factors to the common pathogenesis of major depressive disorders (MDD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). A significant player in the neuroendocrine HPA axis and cortisol response is the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), which is encoded by the nuclear re...

Chronobiology is the study of biological rhythms. In animals, the central biological clock is located in the hypothalamus. Peripheral clocks have also been found in various cells, tissues, and organs. Disruptions of biological rhythms are implicated in general performance decrements and certain medical and psychiatric conditions. Chronotherapeutic...

Introduction The corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 2 (CRHR2) gene encodes CRHR2, which is an important element in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal physiologic response towards stress culminating in hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, mood disorders and depression (MDD). CRHR2-/- mice are hypersensitive to stress, and the CRHR2 locus in huma...

The corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 2 (CRHR2) gene encodes CRHR2, contributing to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress response and to hyperglycemia and insulin resistance. CRHR2−/− mice are hypersensitive to stress, and the CRHR2 locus has been linked to type 2 diabetes and depression. While CRHR2 variants confer risk for mood disord...

The melanocortin receptors are G-protein-coupled receptors, which are essential components of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, and they mediate the actions of melanocortins (melanocyte-stimulating hormones: α-MSH, β-MSH, and γ-MSH) as well as the adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH) in skin pigmentation, adrenal steroidogenesis, and stress re...

Background United States military Veterans from recent conflicts are experiencing symptoms related to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many Veterans are resistant to conventional health and mental health interventions (e.g., medication, psychotherapy). Alternative treatment approaches are needed. An underlying feature of PTSD is exaggerated in...

Background This study is a confirmatory efficacy trial of two treatments for winter seasonal affective disorder (SAD): SAD-tailored group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT-SAD) and light therapy (LT). In our previous efficacy trial, post-treatment outcomes for CBT-SAD and LT were very similar, but CBT-SAD was associated with fewer depression recurr...

Background Immune activation or high levels of stress may lead to increased metabolism of tryptophan during pregnancy. Porphyromonas gingivalis (Pg), the “keystone” periodontal pathogen, induces immune and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) activation. Thus, we hypothesized that larger gestational decreases in tryptophan and elevations in neopterin...

Background: This study is a confirmatory efficacy trial of two treatments for winter seasonal affective disorder (SAD): SAD-tailored group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT-SAD) and light therapy (LT). In our previous efficacy trial, post-treatment outcomes for CBT-SAD and LT were very similar, but CBT-SAD was associated with fewer depression recur...

The prevalence of anxiety, mood and trauma- and stress-related disorders are on the rise; however, efforts to develop new and effective treatment strategies have had limited success. To identify novel therapeutic targets, a comprehensive understanding of the disease etiology is needed, especially in the context of the holobiont, i.e., the superorga...

Depression during and after pregnancy affects up to 20% of pregnant women, but the biological underpinnings remain incompletely understood. As pregnancy progresses, the immune system changes to facilitate fetal development, leading to distinct fluctuations in the production of pro-inflammatory factors and neuroactive tryptophan metabolites througho...

Objectives: To illustrate the use of machine learning methods to search for heterogeneous effects of a target modifiable risk factor on suicide in observational studies. The illustration focuses on secondary analysis of a matched case-control study of vitamin D deficiency predicting subsequent suicide. Methods: We describe a variety of machine l...

Purpose of ReviewWe present biological and psychological factors implicated in psychiatric manifestations of SARS-CoV-2, as well as its neuroinvasive capability and immune pathophysiology.Recent FindingsPreexisting mental illness leads to worse clinical outcomes in COVID-19. The presence of the virus was reported in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) an...

Objective Psychiatric hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits are costly, stigmatizing, and often ineffective. Given the immune and kynurenine activation in bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia, as well as the immune-modulatory effects of statins, we aimed to compare the relative risk (RRs) of psychiatric hospitalizations and ED vi...

Background : Efficacious treatments for winter seasonal affective disorder (SAD) include light therapy (LT) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT-SAD); however, baseline characteristics may differentially predict treatment outcomes. This study investigated body mass index (BMI) and atypical balance (the proportion of atypical depression symptoms),...

The gut microbiome is impacted by environmental exposures and has been implicated in many physical and mental health conditions, including anxiety disorders, affective disorders, and trauma- and stressor-related disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). United States (US) military Veterans are a unique population in that their militar...

Phylogenetic, developmental, and brain-imaging studies suggest that human personality is the integrated expression of three major systems of learning and memory that regulate (1) associative conditioning, (2) intentionality, and (3) self-awareness. We have uncovered largely disjoint sets of genes regulating these dissociable learning processes in d...

Within the general literature on infections and suicidal behavior, studies on Toxoplasma gondii ( T. gondii ) occupy a central position. This is related to the parasite's neurotropism, high prevalence of chronic infection, as well as specific and non-specific behavioral alterations in rodents that lead to increased risk taking, which are recapitula...

Introduction Sleep problems and periodontal disease have a bidirectional relationship and are independently linked with depression, dementia, and metabolic disease. Inadequate sleep can worsen inflammation, a hallmark of periodontal disease, and the activation of the immune system can alter sleep/wake cycles. A key player in periodontal disease is...

Dietary patterns influence gut microbiota composition. To date, there has not been an assessment of diet and gut microbiota in Veterans, who have a history of unique environmental exposures, including military deployment, that may influence associations between diet and gut microbiota. Our aim was to characterise Veteran habitual dietary intake and...

Sleep is essential to the human brain and is regulated by genetics with many features conserved across species. Sleep is also influenced by health and environmental factors; identifying replicable genetic variants contributing to sleep may require accounting for these factors. We examined how stress and mood disorder contribute to sleep and impact...

Objective: Fatty acids (FAs) are involved in the functioning of biological systems previously associated with suicidal behavior (eg, monoamine signaling and the immune system). We sought to determine (1) whether observed FA levels in a sample of military suicide decedents and living matched controls were consistent with latent classes having disti...

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is an important human disease-causing parasite. In the USA, T. gondii infects >10% of the population, accrues economic losses of US$3.6 billion/year, and ranks as the second leading culprit of foodborne illness-related fatalities. We assessed toxoplasmosis risk among the Old Order Amish, a mostly homogenous population...

Recently published exploratory studies based on exposure to outdoor fine particulates, defined as particles with a nominal mean diameter less than or equal to 2.5 μm (PM2.5) indicate that the pollutant may play a role in mental health conditions, such as major depressive disorder. This paper details a model that can estimate the United States (US)...

Background: US military Veterans returned from Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn (OEF/OIF/OND) with symptoms associated with mild traumatic brain injury [mTBI; i.e., persistent post-concussive (PPC) symptoms] and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Interventions aimed at addressing symptoms associated with both...

Experimental studies of learning suggest that human temperament may depend on the molecular mechanisms for associative conditioning, which are highly conserved in animals. The main genetic pathways for associative conditioning are known in experimental animals, but have not been identified in prior genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of human te...

Human personality is 30-60% heritable according to twin and adoption studies. Hundreds of genetic variants are expected to influence its complex development, but few have been identified. We used a machine learning method for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to uncover complex genotypic-phenotypic networks and environmental interactions. The...

Purpose of Review This review focuses on recent advances in our understanding of the interactions between psychological stress, the immune system, and periodontitis, including the dynamic role of host stress responses in altering immune function, altering the oral microbiome and biofilm formation, and promoting local and systemic disease progressio...

Objective: To evaluate the association between distal moderate/severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) history and the human gut microbiome. Setting: Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Participants: Veterans from the United States-Veteran Microbiome Project (US-VMP). Veterans with moderate/severe TBI (n = 34) were compared with (1) Veterans with a h...

Introduction: Previous research has suggested that the Amish may experience a relatively high prevalence of Parkinson's disease (PD) and/or parkinsonian motor signs. Methods: In a large sample from the Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, age ≥18 years, we assessed the prevalence of self-reported PD diagnosis. For those without sel...

Exposure to artificial bright light in the late evening and early night, common in modern society, triggers phase delay of circadian rhythms, contributing to delayed sleep phase syndrome and seasonal affective disorder. Studying a unique population like the Old Order Amish (OOA), whose lifestyles resemble pre-industrial societies, may increase unde...

Introduction Growing evidence connects periodontal disease, a major and modifiable cause of local and systemic inflammation, with metabolic and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, as well as mental illness. Sleep has been previously predictively associated with metabolic and psychiatric morbidity and mortality, and has recently been linked with...

Background: Soluble P-selectin (sP-selectin) is associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) but this association has not been evaluated in patients with schizophrenia. This study primarily evaluated the association of sP-selectin with plasma lipids and nitrite (NO 2 -) respectively in overweight/obese adults with schizophrenia. Me...

Porphyromonas Gingivalis K6 Serotype IgG Titers Pre- dict Prenatal Depression Scores Abhishek Wadhawan1, Mark A. Reynolds2, Robert K. Ernst2, Neil Constantine3, Robert Schifferle4, Ahmed Abouhamda3, Hina Makkar5, Aline Dagdag5, Cedric Harville 2nd,6, Samia Dutra6, Marueen W. Groer6, and Teodor T. Postolache7 1Saint Elizabeths Hospital, 2University...

Introduction: Previous studies have suggested that the Amish may experience a relatively high prevalence of Parkinson's disease (PD) and/or parkinsonian-motor signs. Methods: We assessed the frequency of PD-related motor and no-motor symptoms in a large sample from the Amish Community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania age ≥18 y. Results: Of 430 par...

There is an increasing evidence that inflammation contributes to clinical and functional outcomes in traumatic brain injury (TBI). Many successful target-engaging, lesion-reducing, symptom-alleviating, and function-improving interventions in animal models of TBI have failed to show efficacy in clinical trials. Timing and immunological context are p...

Circadian rhythms have a period of approximately 24 h, persist when constant dim light conditions exist, and are driven by the internal master biological clock, located in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus. While these rhythms are endogenous, they are attuned to external time cues called zeitgebers (time givers), with the daily l...

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with immune dysregulation, increased vulnerability to infections, depression, and suicidal behavior. One mediator of vitamin D-dependent immune regulation and antimicrobial defense is the cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide (LL37), encoded by the cathelicidin-related antimicrobial peptide (CRAMP) gene. We compared...

Increasing evidence incriminates low-grade inflammation in cardiovascular, metabolic diseases, and neuropsychiatric clinical conditions, all important causes of morbidity and mortality. One of the upstream and modifiable precipitants and perpetuators of inflammation is chronic periodontitis, a polymicrobial infection with Porphyromonas gingivalis (...

Overlapping pathways between mood and metabolic regulation have increasingly been reported. Although impaired regulation of adiponectin, a major metabolism-regulating hormone, has been implicated in major depressive disorder, its role in seasonal changes in mood and seasonal affective disorder-winter type (SAD), a disorder characterized by onset of...

Global urbanization, combined with evidence of increased prevalence of mental illness in urban environments, highlights a need to investigate potential connections between the built environment and mental health. Previous research has shown that the built environment may impact occupant mental health through its effects on connection to nature, per...

Depression during pregnancy and the post-partum is common, with severe cases resulting in suicidal behavior. Despite the urgent and unmet medical need, the biological underpinnings of peri-partum depression remain unclear. It has been suggested that it is triggered by dynamic changes of the immune system during pregnancy and at delivery. Therefore,...

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is an intracellular parasite infecting one third of the world’s population. Latent T. gondii infection has been associated with mental illness, including schizophrenia and suicidal behavior. T. gondii IgG antibody titers were measured via ELISA. The heritability of T. gondii IgG was estimated using a mixed model that i...

Abstract Research has yet to provide a comprehensive understanding of the genetic basis of bipolar disorder (BP). In genetic studies, defining the phenotype by diagnosis may miss risk-allele carriers without BP. The authors aimed to test whether quantitatively detected subclinical symptoms of bipolarity identifies a heritable trait that infers risk...

Background: Summer/spring-type seasonal affective disorder (S-SAD) is the less common subtype of seasonal affective disorder and evidence regarding potential triggers of S-SAD is scarce. Recent reports support association of airborne-pollen with seasonal exacerbation of depression (mood seasonality) and timing of suicidal behavior. Therefore, we hy...

Study objectives: We hypothesized that sleep duration in the Amish would be longer than in non-Amish. Methods: Sleep duration was obtained by questionnaire administered to Amish individuals (n = 3,418) and from the 2015-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES; n = 1,912). Self-reported sleep duration was calculated as the d...

Abstract Background The microbiome of the built environment has important implications for human health and wellbeing; however, bidirectional exchange of microbes between occupants and surfaces can be confounded by lifestyle, architecture, and external environmental exposures. Here, we present a longitudinal study of United States Air Force Academy...