Neupane has a background as a general practitioner in Nepal. He has a master’s degree in International Community Health at the University of Oslo and recently he finished his PhD at SERAF this past spring.
His project is on the relationship between alcohol, depression and immunology as part of the DARCY project.
- Currently I am researching how alcohol consumption can affect the immune system. We want to understand how the weakening of the immune system caused by excessive alcohol intake over a long period can affect your mood, he says.
There is a lack of knowledge about why up to 90% of patients with alcohol abuse disorders experience depression symptoms and as many as a third of them suffer from clinical depression.
- In recent years, research has shown that people with depression have had a change in their immune system. In addition, alcohol abuse disorders also weaken the immune system.
- Therefore, we investigate whether inflammatory markers in the blood may explain the high incidence of depression among alcohol-dependent individuals, he explains.
Some biological parameters within the immune system seems to be an important basis in the complex interactions between alcohol related conditions and depression. This has a clear clinical significance.
Neupane explains that currently there aren't any objective biological measurements to diagnose psychiatric patients and their prognosis. It is also difficult to categorize these patients as they may be different in many ways.
- Being able to classify these patient groups for specific biological parameters would be an important contribution to this field of research, he says.