Dr. Pandey is Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of Psychiatry since 1981 and is Director of Biological Research Laboratories. His main research interests are the neurobiology of mood disorders, schizophrenia and suicide. Dr. Pandey is a nationally and internationally renowned expert on biochemical abnormalities associated with mood disorders and suicide. In order to examine these neurobiological abnormalities, Dr. Pandey has been studying the role of monoamine receptors and receptor- linked signaling system in the postmortem brain obtained from suicide victims and normal control subjects as well as the peripheral cells, such as platelets and lymphocytes, from patients and normal control subjects. He has been particularly interested in examining the role of serotonergic mechanisms and for that purpose, he has studied primarily the serotonin receptor subtypes (e.g., serotonin2A, serotonin2B and serotonin2C receptors) in various areas of the postmortem brain of suicide victims and normal control subjects. He has also studied various components of the phosphoinositide (PI) and adenylyl cyclase (AC) signaling systems and their components such as G protein, phosphorylating enzymes, protein kinase A (PKA), protein kinase C (PKC), transcription factors such as CREB as well as neurotrophins such as BDNF in the postmortem brain of suicide victims and platelets and lymphocytes of patients with mood disorders. These studies indicated that serotonin receptors are abnormally high in postmortem brain of suicide victims and there appears to be changes in the expression of PKC, PKA as well as CREB and neurotrophins in subjects with suicidal behavior. Similar observations have been made in the platelets and neutrophils of patients with mood disorders such that the PKC and phospholipase C (PLC) appears to be abnormal in the platelets of patients with bipolar illness.

These ongoing studies, supported from several NIMH grants, help in elucidating the biological abnormalities associated with mood disorders and suicide and in addition identify specific abnormal sites in brain of subjects which may help in developing therapeutic agents targeting these particular sites. These studies may also not only result in early identification of suicidal patients but may also help in initiating treatment which may prevent suicide in this populations. This work has been presented in national and international meeting and published in high impact journals.

Dr. Pandey served as principal investigator on many NIMH studies. He is a highly published author in hundreds of medical and scientific journals and has served on editorial boards of several publications, and on grant reviewing committees.

Representative Publications

Pandey GN, Dwivedi Y, Rizavi H, Roberts RC, Conley RR, Tamminga CA: Decreased catalytic activity and expression of Protein kinase C isozymes in teenage suicide victims: A postmortem brain study. Arch Gen Psychiatry 61:685-693, 2004

Pandey GN, Pandey SC, Ren X., Dwivedi Y, Janicak PG: Serotonin receptors in platelets of bipolar and schizoaffective patients: effect of lithium treatment. Psychopharmacology (Berl), 170:115-123, 2003

Dwivedi Y, Rizavi HS, Conley RR, Roberts, RC, Tamminga CA, Pandey GN: Altered gene expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and receptor tyrosine kinase B in postmortem brain of suicide victims. Arch Gen Psychiatry 60:804-815, 2003

Dwivedi Y, SridharaRao J, Rizavi HS, Kotowski J, Conley RR, Roberts, RC, Tamminga CA, Pandey GN: Abnormal expression and functional characteristics of cyclic AMP response element binding protein in postmortem brain of suicide subjects. Arch Gen Psychiatry 60:273-282, 2003

Pandey GN, Dwivedi Y, Ren X, Rizavi H, Conley RC, Roberts RC, Tamminga CA: Altered expression and phosphorylation of myristoylated alanine-rich C kinase substrate (MARCKS) in postmortem brain of suicide victims with or without depression. J Psychiatr Res, 37:421-432, 2003

Pandey GN, Dwivedi Y, Rizavi HS, Ren X, Pandey SC, Pesold C, Roberts RC, Conley RR: Higer expression of serotonin (5HT)2A receptors in the postmortem brain of teeenage suicide victims. Am J Psychiatry 159:419-429, 2002

Pandey GN, Dwivedi Y, SridharaRao J, Ren X, Janicak PG, Sharma R: Protein kinase C and phospholipase C activity and expression of their specific isozymes is decreased and expression of MARCKS is increased in platelets of bipolar but not in unipolar patients. Neuropsychopharmacology 26:216-228, 2002

Pandey GN, Ren X, Pandey SC, Dwivedi Y, Sharma R, Janicak PG: Hyperactive phosphoinositide signaling pathway in platelets of depressed patients: Effect of desipramine treatment. Psychiatry Res 105:23-32, 2001

Dwivedi Y, Pandey GN: Adrenal glucocorticoid modulates [3H]cyclic AMP binding to protein kinase A (PKA), cyclic AMP-dependent PKA activity, and protein levels of selective regulatory and catalytic subunit isoforms of PKA in rat brain. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 294:103-116, 2000

Pandey GN, Dwivedi Y, Pandey SC, Conley RC, Roberts RC, Tamminga CA: Low phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C activity and expression of phospholipase C 1 protein in the prefrontal cortex of teenage suicide subjects. Am J Psychiatry 156:1895-1901, 1999