Our current on-going clinical projects work toward our research lab’s main goal of understanding the relationships within the gut-brain axis during pregnancy and postpartum. We strive to gain knowledge that could eventually lead to better prevention and more accurate diagnosing of perinatal mental health problems and spontaneous preterm birth.
MoMent: pEEG Substudy Heading link
Approximately 10-20% of women experience clinical depression during pregnancy or the first 12 months of postpartum, but fewer than 24% of these women are diagnosed, which can possibly be due to unreliable screenings and assessments during their visits. This portable electroencephalography (pEEG) substudy seeks to close the brain-gut axis loop using a pEEG device on pregnant women.
We are currently recruiting women for our study of mood disorders during pregnancy and postpartum in relationship with the microorganisms that reside inside us (IRB#2014-0325). If you are interested in participating in our study, please contact us at brainresearch@uic.edu.
PreMi: The Role of Microbial Communities and Maternal Mental Health in Spontaneous Preterm Birth Heading link
Preterm birth is the leading cause of infant mortality and morbidity, accounting for one-third of infant deaths, and doubling the risk of neurodevelopmental disability compared with infants born at term. We are currently recruiting pregnant women for our study (IRB#2020-0773) to detect mothers at risk of sPTB more accurately and at an earlier stage and create novel implementable diagnostic tools to decrease the sPTB-related morbidity and mortality.
If you are interested in participating in our study, please contact bealabuic@uic.edu for more information.