Brain charts for the human lifespan

Publication: Nature

R. A. I. Bethlehem, J. Seidlitz, S. R. White, J. W. Vogel, K. M. Anderson, C. Adamson, S. Adler, G. S. Alexopoulos, E. Anagnostou, A. Areces-Gonzalez, D. E. Astle, B. Auyeung,
M. Ayub, J. Bae, G. Ball, S. Baron-Cohen, R. Beare, S. A. Bedford, V. Benegal, F. Beyer, J. Blangero, M. Blesa Cábez, J. P. Boardman, M. Borzage, J. F. Bosch-Bayard, N. Bourke, V. D. Calhoun, M. M. Chakravarty, C. Chen, C. Chertavian, G. Chetelat, Y. S. Chong, J. H. Cole, A. Corvin, M. Costantino, E. Courchesne, F. Crivello, V. L. Cropley, J. Crosbie, N. Crossley, M. Delarue, R. Delorme, S. Desrivieres, G. A. Devenyi, M. A. Di Biase, R. Dolan, K. A. Donald, G. Donohoe, K. Dunlop, A. D. Edwards, J. T. Elison, C. T. Ellis, J. A. Elman, L. Eyler, D. A. Fair, E. Feczko, P. C. Fletcher, P. Fonagy, C. E. Franz, L. Galan-Garcia, A. Gholipour, J. Giedd, J. H. Gilmore, D. C. Glahn, I. M. Goodyer, P. E. Grant, N. A. Groenewold, F. M. Gunning, R. E. Gur, R. C. Gur, C. F. Hammill, O. Hansson, T. Hedden, A. Heinz, R. N. Henson, K. Heuer, J. Hoare, B. Holla, A. J. Holmes, R. Holt, H. Huang, K. Im, J. Ipser, C. R. Jack Jr, A. P. Jackowski, T. Jia, K. A. Johnson, P. B. Jones, D. T. Jones, R. S. Kahn, H. Karlsson, L. Karlsson, R. Kawashima, E. A. Kelley, S. Kern, K. W. Kim, M. G. Kitzbichler, W. S. Kremen, F. Lalonde, B. Landeau, S. Lee, J. Lerch, J. D. Lewis, J. Li, W. Liao, C. Liston, M. V. Lombardo, J. Lv, C. Lynch, T. T. Mallard, M. Marcelis, R. D. Markello, S. R. Mathias, B. Mazoyer, P. McGuire, M. J. Meaney, A. Mechelli, N. Medic, B. Misic, S. E. Morgan, D. Mothersill, J. Nigg, M. Q. W. Ong, C. Ortinau, R. Ossenkoppele, M. Ouyang, L. Palaniyappan, L. Paly, P. M. Pan, C. Pantelis, M. M. Park, T. Paus, Z. Pausova, D. Paz-Linares, A. Pichet Binette, K. Pierce, X. Qian, J. Qiu, A. Qiu, A. Raznahan, T. Rittman, A. Rodrigue, C. K. Rollins, R. Romero-Garcia, L. Ronan, M. D. Rosenberg, D. H. Rowitch, G. A. Salum, T. D. Satterthwaite, H. L. Schaare, R. J. Schachar, A. P. Schultz, G. Schumann, M. Schöll, D. Sharp, R. T. Shinohara, I. Skoog, C. D. Smyser, R. A. Sperling, D. J. Stein, A. Stolicyn, J. Suckling, G. Sullivan, Y. Taki, B. Thyreau, R. Toro, N. Traut, K. A. Tsvetanov, N. B. Turk-Browne, J. J. Tuulari, C. Tzourio, É. Vachon-Presseau, M. J. Valdes-Sosa, P. A. Valdes-Sosa, S. L. Valk, T. van Amelsvoort, S. N. Vandekar, L. Vasung, L. W. Victoria, S. Villeneuve, A. Villringer, P. E. Vértes, K. Wagstyl, Y. S. Wang, S. K. Warfield, V. Warrier, E. Westman, M. L. Westwater, H. C. Whalley, A. V. Witte, N. Yang, B. Yeo, H. Yun, A. Zalesky, H. J. Zar, A. Zettergren, J. H. Zhou, H. Ziauddeen, A. Zugman, X. N. Zuo, E. T. Bullmore & A. F. Alexander-Bloch

6 April 2022


Summary

An international team of researchers has created a series of brain charts spanning our entire lifespan – from a 15 week old fetus to 100 year old adult – that show how our brains expand rapidly in early life and slowly shrink as we age. Read the full story.

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Prevalence, progress, and subgroup disparities in pharmacological antidepressant treatment of those who screen positive for depressive disorders: a repetitive cross-sectional study in 19 European countries.

Publication: The Lancet Regional Health

Shanquan Chena, Tamsin J.Ford, Peter B.Jones, Rudolf N.Cardinal

29 March 2022


Summary

Public data from two surveys (Health Survey for England, UK; Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) covered 19 European countries across EMHAP phases one (2011–2015) and two (2015–2018). People screening positive for depressive symptoms by self-report were included. The primary outcome was antidepressant use: using country-specific weighted regression models, researchers estimated temporal trends and subgroup disparities in antidepressant receipt, with secondary analysis by country-level measures including healthcare expenditure.

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Association between lithium use and the incidence of dementia and its subtypes: a retrospective cohort study.

Publication: PLOS Medicine

Shanquan Chen, Benjamin R Underwood , Peter B Jones, Jonathan R Lewis, Rudolf N Cardinal

18 March 2022


Summary

Among patients over 50 using mental health services at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, researchers observed an association between lithium use and a decreased risk of developing dementia.

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Clozapine-related obsessive–compulsive symptoms and their impact on wellbeing: a naturalistic longitudinal study

Publication: Psychological Medicine

Katherine Parkin; Shanquan Chen; Marjan Biria; Helen Beckwith; Isaac Jarratt-Barnham; Naomi A Fineberg; Rudolf N Cardinal; Trevor W Robbins; Emilio Fernandez-Egea

13 January 2022


The paper explores the impact of obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) on the wellbeing of people who take clozapine to manage symptoms of schizophrenia. It highlights that clozapine-associated OCS occur frequently in this group of patients and that these symptoms have a negative impact on people’s wellbeing over time.

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A human-interpretable machine learning approach to predict mortality in severe mental illnesses

Publication: npj Schizophrenia

Banerjee S, Liò P, Jones PB, Cardinal RN

8 December 2021


Summary

Machine learning (ML), one aspect of artificial intelligence (AI), involves computer algorithms that train themselves. They have been widely applied in the healthcare domain. However, many trained ML algorithms operate as ‘black boxes’, producing a prediction from input data without a clear explanation of their workings.

Researchers apply class-contrastive counterfactual reasoning to ML to demonstrate how specific changes in inputs lead to different predictions of mortality in people with severe mental illness (SMI).

Researchers produce predictions accompanied by visual and textual explanations as to how the prediction would have differed given specific changes to the input.

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Mental health outcomes after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in the United States, January 6–May 24 2021.

Publication: Journal of Affective Disorders

Shanquan Chen, Athina R.Aruldass, Rudolf N.Cardinal

11 November 2021


Summary

In the first half of 2021, people in the USA who had had the COVID-19 vaccine were in general less likely to have anxiety and depressive symptoms (which might be a cause or a consequence). This effect varied with age, marital status, level of education, ethnicity, and income, but not gender.

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Longer-term mortality following SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with severe mental illness: a retrospective case-matched study.

Publication: BJPsych Open

Shanquan Chen, Emilio Fernandez-Egea, Peter B. Jones, Jonathan R. Lewis and Rudolf N. Cardinal

2 November 2021


Summary

In people with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, an elevated risk of death after COVID-19 infection persists to about 60 days.

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The Effect of Clozapine on Self-reported Duration of Sleep and Its Interaction With 23 Other Medications

Publication: Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology

Fernandez-Egea, Emilio; Chen, Shanquan; Jenkins, Christopher; Turrion, Concha; Mitchell, Simon P.; Dodwell, David J. F.; Mann, Louisa M.; Deakin, Julia B.; Syed, Zahoor H.; Hafizi, Sepehr; Zimbron, Jorge; Praseedom, Asha S.; Cardinal, Rudolf N.

17 June 2021


Summary

Factors associated with sedation and its pharmacological management remain poorly studied.  Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study based on deidentified electronic clinical records of clozapine-treated patients from the secondary mental health care provider for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, United Kingdom.

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Risk factors for excess deaths during lockdown among older users of secondary care mental health services without confirmed COVID-19: A retrospective cohort study.

Publication: International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry

Chen S, Jones PB, Underwood BR, Fernández-Egea E, Qin P, Lewis JR, Cardinal RN

11 August 2021


Summary

Researchers studied patients over 65 known to CPFT mental health services during the early COVID-19 pandemic, and historical control groups (people known to have acquired COVID-19 itself did not take part). During lockdown, people with dementia or severe mental illness had a higher risk of death without confirmed COVID-19.

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Early versus late risk factors for deficit and nondeficit schizophrenia

Publication: Science Direct

Setareh Alabaf, Brian Kirkpatrick, Shanquan Chenc, Rudolf N. Cardinal, Emilio Fernandez-Egea

28 June 2021


Summary

Researchers examined whether timing of known risk factors for schizophrenia may influence the development of schizophrenia with primary negative symptoms.

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