Psychiatrist and professor of clinical psychiatry at the University ofCopenhagen.Research areas since the 1980ies have extended from experimental neuropathology over molecular clinical research to efficacy of psychotherapy. He has particularly studied antidepressant therapies, electroconvulsive therapy, inflammation, stress hormones, somatic diseases and markers of oxidative stress. Clinically he has through the years managed inpatients and patient flow, staff and education.
MBJ has launched the excitoxic theory of ischemic neuronal death. In an animal model he has demonstrated that ECT can prevent atrophy of hippocampal pyramidal cells in stressed animals. He has demonstrated that use of propofol as anesthesia for ECT in depressed patients leads to more side effects. He has demonstrated that severely depressed patients have increased oxidative stress and that if this is cured with ECT it increases further. In animal models he has demonstrated that the effect of stress or ECT is overpowered by weight changes. In epidemiological studies he has demonstrated that use of anti-inflammatory drugs and statins is associated with decreased risk for depression in patient with myocardial infarction and stroke and that ECT is not associated with increased risk for dementia. He is editor – in – chief of the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry