Project goals

Investigate Multimodal Neurobiological Markers

The project aims to understand the mechanisms linking early regulatory problems (RPs) to mental health outcomes across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood by exploring multimodal neurobiological markers. Early RPs, such as excessive crying, feeding difficulties, and sleep disturbances, affect about 20% of infants and are linked to long-term behavioral, emotional, and social difficulties, including internalizing and externalizing disorders.

To achieve this, the project will utilize three large existing datasets from European population-based studies: Generation R (GenR), the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), and the Bavarian Longitudinal Study (BLS), comprising over 6,000 individuals with phenotypic and neuroimaging data from childhood to adulthood. The project will examine both structural and functional brain features that may mediate the link between early RPs and mental health.

Innovative analytical methods such as mixed modeling, meta-analysis, and federated mega-analysis will be developed and applied, enabling the study of brain changes across time and populations. Additionally, the HiTOP framework will be used to assess dimensional mental health outcomes, providing a nuanced understanding of how early RPs affect psychopathological development. This approach aims to inform prevention and intervention strategies to improve mental health outcomes from infancy onward.

Examine Brain Structure and Function

The project aims to assess whether early regulatory problems (RPs) are linked to structural and functional changes within the allostatic-interoceptive system (AIS), focusing on the default mode network (DMN) and the salience network (SN). These brain networks are crucial for regulating bodily functions and supporting processes like social interactions, and their atypical development may be associated with RPs.

The study will further investigate whether these brain changes mediate the relationship between RPs and mental health outcomes across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Analyses will explore whether changes in brain morphology and connectivity within the DMN and SN explain how early RPs contribute to various mental health issues, providing insights into the neurobiological pathways linking early-life challenges with later psychopathology.

QDECR Development and Improvement

The Infant2Adult project aims to enhance the R package QDECR to improve the analysis of cortical morphology. The plan is to add functions for vertex-wise mixed modeling, meta-analysis, and federated mega-analysis. These improvements will help achieve the project’s goals and allow other researchers to conduct cross-dataset studies. QDECR, known for its accessibility and extensibility, will continue to be a valuable open-source tool for the scientific community.

To keep the package up-to-date and accessible, QDECR will be regularly updated on GitHub and published on CRAN and Neuroconductor. The project has also secured support from the EBRAINS initiative to integrate QDECR into its platform, expanding its reach within the neuroscience community. The goal is to achieve a technology readiness level (TRL) of 7 to 8, ensuring the models are thoroughly tested and validated, making the enhanced QDECR package ready for use in neuroimaging.

Improve Behavioral Phenotyping

The project aims to enhance the identification of neurobiological mechanisms underlying mental health by developing improved behavioral phenotyping models. By focusing on dimensional mental health outcomes rather than traditional symptom-based assessments, the project seeks to capture the broader, hierarchical aspects of psychopathology. Using data from the Healthy Brain Network (HBN), the project will translate disorder categories into hierarchical mental health dimensions, providing a more precise and nuanced understanding of psychopathological variation.

This approach will help identify specific neurobiological pathways linked to early regulatory problems and mental health. It offers a comprehensive framework to analyze how early-life adversities contribute to mental health issues across developmental stages. By moving beyond traditional categorical diagnoses, the project aims to offer a more accurate understanding of how early regulatory challenges influence mental health, ultimately enhancing the ability to identify the underlying neurobiological pathways.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse