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Recent Updates

News

FAMILY Secondments: Parisa in Oslo

PhD student Parisa Mohammadzadeh from Bjørn Edrup’s group at Region Hovedstaden in Copenhagen had the opportunity to visit the team at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (Folkehelseininstituttet) in Oslo. During April 2024, she worked at the Centre for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health, where she finalized her PhD thesis and participated in lab meetings and seminars as part of her research stay.

Read Parisa’s reflections on her research stay:
“I had the pleasure of spending the month of April at PsychGen, a division of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) in Oslo, Norway, as part of my change of research environment. Being in the final stages of my PhD, my primary goal was to complete my thesis. I found myself in a calm research setting with dedicated leaders and a flat organizational structure, where each researcher is highly valued. Fortunately, I was able to bring my family along, and we enjoyed exploring the beautiful nature surrounding Oslo with small hiking trips on weekends. While Oslo may not sound as intriguing as traveling to warmer destinations abroad, I can wholeheartedly recommend including it in your PhD journey!“

Thank you, Parisa, for sharing your insights with us!

News

FAMILY survey for mental health care professionals

We would like to invite you to participate in our research study, being conducted by our partners at the University of Latvia as a part of FAMILY!

Click here to get to the survey.

The aim of the study is to collect and analyse mental health care professionals’ attitudes towards the future clinical application of novel prediction tools for the risk of severe mental disorders.

Participation in the study is voluntary. The survey is anonymous, and you will not be identifiable based on the information you provide when completing the survey. We estimate will take approximately 12 minutes to complete the survey.

The study has been approved by the Ethics Committee for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Latvia. If you have any questions about the study, please contact Ivars Neiders (ivars.neiders@lu.lv).
The survey will close on Sunday 26th May.

Click here to get to the survey
News

#10th International Symposium on Resilience Research

September 25-27, 2024 Mainz/Germany // September 24: Satellite Workshop
The symposium takes place as an IN-PERSON meeting (30 min. from Frankfurt International Airport).

Follow & find us on X: @ResilienceRes #resilience2024

Abstract & Registration Deadlines: July 31st 2024.

#RESILIENCE2024

It’s that time of year again this September: international luminaries in resilience research are coming together in Mainz to present and debate the latest research findings.

Since the symposium took place for the first time in 2015, it has been regarded as the most important gathering for international resilience researchers and shapes the field of research every year.

Be there when the International Symposium on Resilience Research invites you to its 10th anniversary this year and opens the doors to the latest findings from the research landscape.

Click here for more information & registration!

25 - 27 September 2024

About

Mental illness runs in families.
The FAMILY consortium aims to improve the life of mentally-ill persons and their families:

  • firstly focus on better understanding the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of mental illness from parent to child.
  • studying the family context, we will try to build models to predict whether mental illness will be transmitted across generations or not.
  • FAMILY will also address key ethical and social issues raised by risk prediction for clinical use, such as the right not to know, and the risk of stigma.
  • Lastly, together with the family advocacy and support organisation EUFAMI and the not-for-profit association ESCAP, we will try to increase awareness and foster active engagement of families, and translate new discoveries to patients and mental health care professionals.

Read more

FAMILY translates current barriers into 3 themes of enquiry, with the following 6 project objectives:

Theme 1

Understanding intergenerational transmission of risk

  • Estimate the contribution of genetic and environmental routes of intergenerational transmission of risk from parent to offspring throughout the life course.
  • Identify causal factors underlying genetic and environmental routes of risk transmission and resilience.
Theme 2

Predicting risk of mental illness in a familial context

  • Identify and validate genetic, epigenetic, and brain imaging biomarkers for risk or resilience to mental disease in the family.
  • Develop and validate a multimodal risk prediction model and a normative modelling framework to predict, at the individual level, who is at risk of developing a mental disorder.
Theme 3

Creating societal impact and end-user engagement

  • Map and evaluate social and ethical consequences of risk prediction for clinical use.
  • Increase awareness and foster active engagement of families and translate new discoveries to patients and mental health care professionals.

Impact

Scientific

New breakthrough scientific discoveries on the intergenerational transmission of risk of mental illness and risk prediction within a family context, pushing the field forward towards first clinical implementation of family-based prediction tools by 2035.

Clinical

Ethical considerations regarding risk prediction support mental health care professionals and patients and their families in clinical decision-making. Awareness on the role of transmission of risk of mental health problems stimulates the integration of child/adolescent and adult mental health care services, leading to improved care for high-risk families.

Societal

Improved mental health literacy in vulnerable high-risk families, resulting in increased engagement with their own mental health and earlier recognition of mental health problems, leading to earlier identification and preventive intervention. Improved quality of life of vulnerable high-risk families because of earlier recognition of emerging problems, earlier and focused preventive interventions, and less stigma and discrimination.

Economic

Earlier identification and preventive intervention of mental health problems prevents exacerbation of these problems, resulting in reduced mental health care cost in the longer term.