Multicenter, multimodal study of first episode psychosis: molecules, circuits, and clinical manifestations 

 

The significance of a multicenter approach is now widely appreciated in medical research. In clinical brain science, a multicenter approach has been a major success in genetics. Meanwhile, application of a multicenter approach to multimodal, deep phenotyping study is not yet fully developed.  

 

iMIND Hopkins recently initiated an effort of establishing an international, multicenter approach for multimodal, deep phenotyping study with the National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (NIMHANS) at Bangalore in India (Leader: John John), the 

Mental Health Center in West China Hospital (MHCWCH) (Leader: Tao Li), and the Schizophrenia Program (PROESQ) at Universidade Federal de São Paulo in Brazil (Leader: Ary Gadelha), all of which have already established FEP cohorts.  

 

Each institute maintains multi-modal datasets from same study participants (e.g,  genotypes, transcriptomes and proteomes, volumetric and functional neuroimaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, neurocognitive assessments, and clinical data).  This allows for connecting different types of data together and exploration of a deep phenotyping approach. The cohorts at NIMHANS, MHCWCH, and PROESQ also include data from un-medicated patients, which provide a unique opportunity to study affected individuals without the confounding effects of medication. 

 

Although the meeting was unfortunately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we arranged to hold a workshop for a special interest group to introduce and expand this multicenter, multimodal study coalition of first episode psychosis. We are welcoming new proposals for this international study coalition.