In the SPI-Lab Research Group, which includes the Perinatal Psychiatry team, we aim to understand how stress hormones and inflammatory responses regulate behaviour and participate to the therapeutic action of psychotropic drugs. The research spans a variety of clinical settings, with a particular emphasis on clinical conditions where there are prominentchanges in stress biological markers, such as depression, first-episode psychosis, women in the perinatal period (and theirinfants), individuals with history of trauma, and patients with inflammation-related medical disorders such as viral hepatitisand chronic fatigue. Moreover, the Group and the Laboratory have a strong emphasis on biological and molecular researchrelevant to mental health, using both biological samples derived from patients' populations, and experimental cellularand animal models.