The mission of the Translational Neuromodeling Unit (TNU) is to develop and validate “computational assays”, i.e., mathematical models for quantifying, from noninvasive brain activity measurements or behavioural data, mechanisms of disease in individual patients. Such computational assays are urgently needed to obtain more precise diagnostics and individualized treatment recommendations, particularly in psychiatry where present diagnostic classification schemes are purely symptom-based and neither allow for mechanistic interpretation nor for individualised treatment predictions. Establishing these computational assays as novel tools for differential diagnosis and individual treatment predictions in clinical practice is the long-term goal of the TNU.
To this end, the proposed project will use imaging data and the records of health-related outcomes from UK Biobank to develop and validate these computational assays. Specifically, we aim to predict both disease progression and treatment outcomes for patients with psychiatric diseases. Our findings will help to confirm (or refute) the utility of these computational assays for addressing real clinical problems and thus represent an important step towards our long-term goal of establishing these tools in clinical practice.