BioMed X launches neuroscience team to study circuit mechanisms of anhedonia
BioMed X has started a new research team at its institute in New Haven, Connecticut, to investigate the brain circuit mechanisms underlying anhedonia. The aim is to identify biomarkers and therapeutic targets. The project is run in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company AbbVie and was announced on 29 September 2026. It is titled ‘Circuit-Based Model Systems of Anhedonia’ (CMA).
Unmet need in mood and psychotic disorders
Anhedonia, the diminished ability to experience pleasure, is a debilitating symptom of major depressive disorder and schizophrenia. BioMed X reports that traditional antidepressant and antipsychotic medicines lack adequate efficacy in relieving it. It attributes this shortfall in part to insufficient understanding of the cellular, circuit and network mechanisms involved.
Working with AbbVie as industry sponsor, Team CMA will seek to advance understanding of the circuit mechanisms behind anhedonia by developing new model systems with high human translational value.
“By delineating the circuitry and mechanisms contributing to anhedonia, we hope to identify biomarkers to improve diagnostic criteria and identify therapeutic targets to improve functional outcomes in anhedonia treatment,” said Dr Kevin Michael Keary III, Group Leader at BioMed X.
Dr Bahareh Eftekharzadeh, Head of Research USA at BioMed X, commented: “Anhedonia is a complex condition with a substantial unmet medical need. In collaboration with AbbVie, we aim to investigate the underlying pathophysiology and neural circuits. We are delighted to welcome Kevin and his team to BioMed X as they take on this important challenge.”
Dr Keary, a winner of the BioMed X innovation boot camp, was previously a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Francisco, in the laboratory of Dr Kevin Bender. There he specialised in dopamine D3 receptor signalling and its engagement by antipsychotic medications. He obtained his PhD in neuroscience through the Brown University-NIH Graduate Partnerships Program, where he studied mechanisms of hippocampal structural and functional plasticity with Dr Zheng Li.
Third project in a long-running collaboration
CMA is the third research project in the partnership between BioMed X and AbbVie. The collaboration began in 2015 with a research group focused on Alzheimer’s disease at the BioMed X Institute in Heidelberg, Germany. In 2023, the partners launched their first US-based project in New Haven, concentrating on immunology and tissue engineering.
The CMA team is also the first BioMed X research group to be based at BioLabs in New Haven, following the recent establishment of a partnership between BioMed X and BioLabs. No timelines or specific biomarker candidates were disclosed.