What we do
About our project
Background
Mental health is one of the leading causes of disability in society, with up to 20% of youth experiencing some form of mental illness. Brain imaging offers a unique window into the brain and has been instrumental in advancing our understanding of the origins of psychiatric disorders. Most neuroimaging studies, however, use a cross-sectional design, meaning individuals are studied at only one point in time. As a result, it is difficult to determine whether the brain features observed preceded or followed the onset of mental health problems.
The Chicken or the Egg?
Recent longitudinal research from our group-where children visited the research center multiple times over a six-year period - has shown that certain brain changes related to symptoms of depression and anxiety occurred after the symptoms emerged. In other words, these brain changes appeared to be a consequence, rather than a cause, of mental health issues. The idea that "behavior can shape the brain" is not new; for example, musical training or navigating as a taxi driver have both been shown to affect brain structure. What’s novel in psychiatry is extending this concept to show that mental illness symptoms themselves can reshape the brain.
The Project
This Erasmus MC Fellowship builds on our earlier work in several innovative ways. Specifically, it will incorporate newly collected data from later developmental stages (i.e., adolescence and young adulthood), include both functional and structural MRI, and employ external replication datasets to test the generalizability of our findings.
Our research focus
Longitudinal Data and Models
This project focuses on leveraging repeated-measures MRI data-that is, brain scans collected from the same individuals at multiple time points—to disentangle the trajectories of brain development in the context of mental health problems.
Funds & Grants
Erasmus MC Fellowship
