Approved Research

Genetic and Non-genetic determinants of mental disorders, sleep-wake disorders and their comorbidity.

Lay summary

Mental disorders (depressive/anxiety/bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc), sleep-wake disorders (insomnia, circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders, obstructive sleep apnea, etc) and their comorbidity (cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, etc) impact health and result in substantial economic burden for patients and society. A number of factors have been found that affect risk of developing mental disorders and sleep-wake disorders, but many more remain to be discovered, such as genetic factors and imaging features. Besides, there is still lack of sufficient and robust evidence on estimating the risk of specific disease in a population-based prospective cohort. Therefore, we intend to study causal effects of gene data, non-genetic data and imaging features on these mental disorders, sleep-wake disorders and their comorbidity.

This project will last for 36 months. Insights from this study can be used to provide mental disorders and sleep-wake disorders for early, targeted intervention and prognostication.