Research News

Writer: Dr. Nicole Sanford @ University of British Columbia A new study using UK Biobank data suggests that lifestyle and physical health may help explain why some people with depression show signs of accelerated brain ageing while others do not. Researchers analysed lifestyle, physical health, and social factors in 896 adults with depression and 36,206 participants without a psychiatric illness to better understand the links between everyday habits and brain ageing. The rese

Writer: Dr. Shalaila Haas @ ISMMS This study was the first application of the robust and large scale normative models developed by Ge and colleagues to a clinical sample. Normative modeling provides standards or "norms" at different ages for specific measures. In this case, normative models were generated for each region in the brain in more than 37,000 healthy individuals. These models can then be applied to other datasets, for example patients with a specific mental illness

Writer: Dr. Ruiyang Ge @ University of British Columbia Mood and anxiety disorders are the leading contributors to mental illness in individuals between the ages of 10 and 24, accounting for over 65% of the disease burden. However, the currently defined diagnostic boundaries of mood disorders (such as major depressive disorders and bipolar disorders) and anxiety disorders are highly permeable, with significant overlap in psychopathology. This clinical overlap is especially pr

Writer: Dr. Ruiyang Ge @ University of British Columbia Major depressive disorder (MDD) remains amongst the leading causes of disability in Canada and worldwide, and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this situation. The high prevalence and disability associated with MDD make research aimed at understanding its pathophysiology and developing effective treatments an important priority for public health. Over the last decade, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTM