Structural brain imaging correlates of schizophrenia symptomatology and their genetic background

• Applicant: Dr. Esther Walton
• Subject Area: Biological Psychiatry ; Human Genetics ; Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2015 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 277830519

The considerable variability of cognitive and clinical symptoms across patients with schizophrenia likely reflects the impact of various etiological factors and limits the search for underlying pathological processes. Investigating more distinct symptoms of the disease could help to study the brain-based correlates and the genetic background of schizophrenia.The research objectives of this project are to investigate a) the structural correlates of negative and positive symptomatology - core symptoms of schizophrenia - and b) the genetics behind both symptom classes and related brain structures. It is planned to use demographic, clinical, genetic and structural imaging data from the Neuro Imaging Genetics Through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) consortium. With over 15 international sites, this consortium includes data of over 2000 patients with schizophrenia and an even larger number of healthy controls.Combining advanced imaging, genome-wide and meta-analytical approaches will allow for the investigation of these relationships in a hypothesis-free and standardized manner helping to gain insight into more specific and causal neurobiological mechanisms of the disorder.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professorin Jessica Turner, Ph.D.