Nottingham - UNOTT

Brain & Body Centre
Nottingham NG7 2RD
United Kingdom

http://brainbody.nottingham.ac.uk/

The role of the Brain and Body Centre is recruitment and testing. The Brain and Body Centre will also be involved in genetic analyses and the intergration of behavioural and structural MR data sets.  Some of the Imagen based predictions will be tested using the Saguenay Youth Study (see below).

Prof. Dr. Tomas Paus Phone: +44 (0) 115 9515362  Fax: +44 (0) 115 8468274  Contact

The history of the University of Nottingham/Brain & Body Centre
The Brain & Body Centre provides an interdisciplinary setting for studies of environmental and genetic factors that are shaping structure and function of the human brain and body.
We are interested both in the dynamics of normal development from pregnancy, through childhood and adolescence to adulthood, as well as in the long-term consequences of various environmental events that occur before birth but “program” the brain and body for the rest of life.
We hope that this work will lead to new discoveries relevant for disorders of the brain, such as addiction or depression, and the body, such as obesity or hypertension.

Summary of experience relevant to IMAGEN
Our participation in the Imagen project builds on the expertise we have acquired over the past 10 years by working on several large-scale MR-based studies of brain development:

The Saguenay Youth Study (Pausova, Paus et al. 2007) is a study funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR); it investigates the effects of prenatal exposure to maternal cigarette smoking (PEMCS) on brain & behaviour and cardiovascular & metabolic health during adolescence. Structural MR scans have been collected in 500 adolescents (12 to 18 years of age; 50% females; sibships) recruited in a genetically isolated population of the Saguenay Lac Saint-Jean (SLSJ) region in Quebec, Canada (for details, see section 3.3. Research plans). The study is ongoing; we plan to reach the final sample size of 1,000 adolescents in the next four years. DNA is acquired in both biological parents and in adolescent siblings. This study is co-directed by Prof. Paus and Dr. Pausova.

The NIH MRI Study of Normal Brain Development (Evans and the Brain Development Cooperative Group 2006) is a multi-centre study carried out in the U.S. Structural MR scans are collected in 500 typically developing children (age 7 days to 18 years); older children (>5 years) are scanned three times (at 2-year interval). Prof. Paus is the scientific liaison officer of this study, with the responsibility for the integration of MR and behavioral datasets.

The NIMH MRI Study of Normal and Abnormal Brain Development (Lenroot and Giedd 2006) is an ongoing research program carried out in the Child Psychiatry Branch of the NIMH (U.S.). Over the past 15 years, structural MRIs have been collected in a total of 2,000 children and adolescents (5 to 18 years of age) of which about 600 are typically developing singletons, 400 are twins and 1,000 are children with various psychiatric disorders such as childhood-onset schizophrenia and ADHD. DNA is collected in a subset of individuals. Prof. Paus collaborates with Drs. Rapaport and Giedd on the analysis of this dataset.