Connecting the Dots in Translational Neuroscience

The previous section addressed how a new drug discovery ecosystem is evolving; in the second section, we look into translational neuroscience approaches and technologies being employed in this new system. These technologies are used to assess pharmacokinetic–pharmacological (PK–PD) relationships to establish therapeutic windows and to drive successful translation from animal data to healthy humans and patients in order to develop safer and more effective treatments. Among these technologies, the use of brain imaging methods, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), is on the rise. A significant advantage of these methods is that they can be done across species. Successful drug discovery will require the development of clever, project-specific and integrated multimodal approaches that cover PK–PD relationships at multiple units of analysis, with a focus on “connecting the dots,” that is, obtaining robust associations among different data types.