Approved Research

Genotype and phenotype analysis in human brain of mental disorders

Lay summary

In previous studies, we know that the mental diseases with high heritability as well as brain structural and functional impairments. Many methods established and applied in to analysis of mental disorders, but few studies have combined these different parts for analysis. Our research focuses on the relationship between mental disorders/cognitive abilities (such as MDD, ASD, AD, PTSD, schizophrenia, etc), genetics and brain imaging.

In the primary stage of our study, we are going to operate statistical analysis on the anatomical features in human brain of mental diseases, and to filter pivotal features as biomarker candidates for further analysis. In the further study, we will investigate task-based fMRI (tfMRI) and resting-based fMRI (rsfMRI) data to detect early mental disorders related features based on deep learning. For genetic analysis, we identify the seed genes that are likely to causally affect mental disorders.

We will combine neuroimaging, diverse clinical and cognitive phenotypes, and genomics that are important for mental health, developing a model to predict diseases and a method to improve accuracy. Which will potentially provide candidate genes and drug targets for further study in relation disease, improving the effectiveness of disease treatment. Our project duration may be 36 months