Gregory Strauss<\/a>, assistant professor of psychology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is a site PI on the grant, which is being used to establish the ProNet consortium. ProNet was developed to allow the field to rapidly test hypotheses about biomarkers leading to the development of psychotic disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) and to build the infrastructure for multinational clinical trials using a personalized medicine approach.<\/p>\nAcross all 27 sites, the investigators will recruit 1,040 patients at clinical high-risk for psychosis and follow them for two years. Strauss and his UGA team of collaborators will collect a series of measures on the participants, including clinical interviews, neuropsychological tests, MRI measures of brain structure and function, EEG, blood and salivary fluid biomarkers, genetics, natural language, and mobile phone digital phenotyping.<\/p>\n
\u201cPsychotic disorders are one of the leading medical causes of functional disability worldwide,\u201d Strauss said. \u201cGiven that most individuals do not recover after the onset of a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia, the\u00a0field has been shifting toward a model of early identification and prevention in those at clinical high risk for developing psychosis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strauss\u2019 role is to lead data collection efforts at UGA, as well as clinical portions of the grant focused on his specialty\u2014negative symptoms (reductions in motivation, emotion, social behavior). He is also a key contributor to the consortium\u2019s efforts related to digital phenotyping and mobile assessment of symptoms and behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201cPsychotic disorders are often proceeded by a prodromal, or pre-illness, period where subtle symptoms arise and functioning deteriorates two-four years before the illness onsets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
ProNet will help to address these problems facing early identification by developing novel risk prediction algorithms based on\u00a0combinations of biomarkers, clinical variables, cognitive tests, genetics and digital phenotypes. The algorithms are critical for identifying mechanistic targets needed to guide drug development and creation of personalized treatment approaches to prevention and early intervention.<\/p>\n
Psychosis is a very heterogeneous disorder, with multiple syndromes or pathways in its constellation of symptom combinations. Multiple treatments will therefore be necessary to slow or prevent its onset in those at clinical high risk for developing it.<\/p>\n
Strauss\u2019 lab at UGA is one of 27 sites, including 18 in the United States, two in Canada (Calgary, McGill), two in the United Kingdom (Cambridge, Kings College), and single sites in Italy (Pavia), Spain (Hospital Grego), Germany (Munchen), China (Shanghai Medical Center), and South Korea (Seoul National University).<\/p>\n
The grant is a component of NIH\u2019s launch of a new public-private partnership to meet the urgent need for early therapeutic interventions for people at risk of developing schizophrenia. Part of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership, AMP Schizophrenia brings together NIH, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and multiple nonprofit and private organizations.<\/p>\n
These partners will work toward the shared mission of discovering promising biological markers that can help identify those at risk of developing schizophrenia as early as possible, track the progression of symptoms and other outcomes and define targets for treatment development.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that with most brain diseases, early interventions before the onset of symptoms improve long-term outcomes,\u201d said NIH Director Francis S. Collins. \u201cThrough research we\u2019ve identified clinical and biological markers for schizophrenia, but we need to translate this knowledge into early interventions to make a meaningful difference in the lives of people at risk for this debilitating disease. AMP Schizophrenia aims to be that bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n
This research is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under award number U01MH124639. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Researchers from the University of Georgia are part of an international investigation led by the Yale Department of Psychiatry to better understand the cause and effect of schizophrenia in some high-risk adolescents and young adults. The research, funded by a $52 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, will fund the development of the … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “UGA part of $52M NIH study on early detection of schizophrenia in young people”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":29121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[279],"tags":[],"post_medium":[314],"publications":[],"authors":[344],"photographers":[],"video_credit":[],"takeaways":[],"class_list":["post-33473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","post_medium-read","authors-alan-flurry","entry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33473"},{"taxonomy":"post_medium","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_medium?post=33473"},{"taxonomy":"publications","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publications?post=33473"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=33473"},{"taxonomy":"photographers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/photographers?post=33473"},{"taxonomy":"video_credit","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/video_credit?post=33473"},{"taxonomy":"takeaways","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.uga.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/takeaways?post=33473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}