Author Archives: Eiko

Video: Lecture on Symptomics in Psychiatry

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I spent the last 2 weeks in Tempe, Arizona, working with the brilliant Randolph Nesse and his lab at the Center of Evolution and Medicine at Arizona State University. During my stay, I was invited to give a lecture on Symptomics, a new research framework we recently developed to tackle challenges psychiatry has been struggling… Read more »

The genetics of major depression remain elusive

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Nature didn’t want our commentary ;) … so we publish it here instead. A commentary by Eiko Fried, Sophie van der Sluis, and Angelique Cramer (PDF) A recent study published in Nature by the CONVERGE consortium1 identified two Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) that replicated across two samples of Han-Chinese women with… Read more »

Blog about our STAR*D depression heterogeneity paper

John McManamy has written a great piece on depression heterogeneity at healthcentral.com that nicely sums up our study “Depression is not a consistent syndrome: an investigation of unique symptom patterns in the STAR*D study” published in the Journal of Affective Disorders (PDF). His main message: The quick takeaway is that not all depressions are the… Read more »

New review paper on depression symptoms

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BMC Medicine published our new paper “Depression sum-scores don’t add up: why analyzing specific depression symptoms is essential” (PDF). It was published in the section Current Controversies in Psychiatry that “seeks to address the key challenges in mental health from diagnosis to co-morbidities” and “focuses on precision medicine where advances in genetics, epigenetics, biomarkers, treatment… Read more »

New paper on problematic assumptions in depression research

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My first solo album I mean paper was released a few days ago ;). My special thanks to Randolph Nesse, Laura Bringmann, Denny Borsboom, and Francis Tuerlinckx for the great support. The publication titled “Problematic assumptions have slowed down depression research: why symptoms, not syndromes are the way forward” is available as open access paper… Read more »

ICPS Amsterdam 2015 presentation online

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The presentation about psychopathological symptom networks I gave at ICPS 2015 in Amsterdam, “From Loss to Loneliness: The Relationship Between Bereavement and Depressive Symptoms” (PDF of the study), is online on the website of the open science framework. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Bereavement paper published !

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Our new paper “From Loss to Loneliness: The Relationship Between Bereavement and Depressive Symptoms” was just published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (PDF). In the paper we examined a prospective cohort of 515 individuals, half of which would experience spousal loss throughout the course of the study (the other half was queried as control… Read more »

Media reaction to our new bereavement paper

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The KU Leuven press office did an amazing job with the press release of our new paper “From Loss to Loneliness: The Relationship Between Bereavement and Depressive Symptoms” (PDF) that was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology today. » Fried, E. I., Bockting, C., Arjadi, R., Borsboom, D., Tuerlinckx, F., Cramer, A., Epskamp, S.,… Read more »

New paper on life stress and depression symptoms

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Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica just published our paper “The differential influence of life stress on individual symptoms of depression”! » Fried, E. I., Nesse, R. M., Guille, C., & Sen, S. (2015). The differential influence of life stress on individual symptoms of depression. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 1-7, EPub ahead of print. (PDF).

New paper on symptom heterogeneity

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The Journal of Affective Disorders just published our second STAR*D paper! » Fried, E. I., & Nesse, R. M. (2015). Depression is not a consistent syndrome: An investigation of unique symptom patterns in the STAR*D study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 172, 96–102. (PDF)

Nature correspondence published

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Our commentary regarding the NIMH’s decision to solely fund research investigating the neurobiological roots of mental disorders was published in today’s issue of Nature. » Fried, E. I., Tuerlinckx, F., & Borsboom, D. (2014). Mental health: more than neurobiology. Nature, 508, 458. (PDF)

New postdoctoral position

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Starting in May 2014, I will be working as a postdoctoral research fellow on psychopathological network models with a focus on affective disorders in the ‘Research Group of Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences’ at University of Leuven with Prof. Francis Tuerlinckx, in close collaboration with Prof. Denny Borsboom at University of Amsterdam.

Press release: STAR*D impairment paper

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Check out this German press release that covers our STAR*D paper! Gesundheitsstadt-Berlin.de also writes about our STAR*D research.

Paper on depression symptoms and impairment

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The paper I wrote together with Randolph Nesse about individual symptoms of depression and their differential impact on impairment of psychosocial functioning was just published in PLoS ONE. » Fried, E. I. & Nesse, R. M. (2014). The Impact of Individual Depressive Symptoms on Impairment of Psychosocial Functioning. PLoS ONE, 9(2), e90311. (PDF)

Ph.D finished

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I successfully finished my Ph.D with summa cum laude! Thanks to everybody who supported me over the last years. You can find the online version of my dissertation “Covert Heterogeneity of Major Depressive Disorder: Depression Is More Than the Sum-Score of its Symptoms” (125 pages) here.