Project Details
Projekt
Neurobiological mechanisms of resilience and identification of at-risk groups
Subject Area
Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519365575
Resilience is defined as the maintenance and/or quick recovery of mental health during or after experiencing adversity. It is conceptualized as the result of a dynamic process of successful adaptation to stressors. To better understand the complex and time-varying processes of resilience, the LOngitudinal Resilience Assessment (LORA) study began as part of SFB 1193. The LORA study included 1191 healthy participants and examined them over a period of 4.5 years. Participants were psychometrically characterized every 18 months. An online survey is conducted every 3 months to assess mental health and stressor exposure. This design allows for a quantitative assessment of stressor-related change in mental health. Although unplanned, due to the unique longitudinal study design, the LORA study provides detailed data on the mental health status of the participants before the pandemic (baseline). Besides the “basic” assessment, at the start of the 1st lockdown, 523 subjects in the LORA study agreed to participate in additional weekly, and later monthly, online surveys (LORA-COVID). Thus, the LORA study is one of very few studies worldwide that can directly analyze the impact of the lockdown measures and the Corona pandemic on mental health and is able to measure change in stress levels (compared to cross-sectional studies). The current project LORA-RISK study builds on the findings of LORA and LORA-COVID and focuses on identifying groups at risk for developing psychiatric disorders and predicting them using biomarkers. LORA-RISK has three main objectives: Aim 1 is to maintain, continue and follow-up the unique LORA cohort for another two years (8 follow-ups) to capture as many (traumatic) life events as possible and to understand their impact on mental health. Aim 2: Based on the LORA-COVID data, we have already identified 3 groups of mental health trajectories after the 1st lockdown ("acute deterioration", "resilience" and "delayed deterioration"). Analogously, the trajectories of mental health from LORA-RISK will be grouped into homogeneous classes to identify different trajectories. In LORA-RISK, this will be modeled on non-COVID related traumatic life events using "stressor locked" analyses, in which comparably stressful life events are used as a starting point for calculating the trajectories. Aim 3: LORA-COVID showed an association of risk trajectories with biomarkers (hair cortisol and polygenetic risk scores). LORA-RISK will test these and other fluid and [neuro]cognitive biomarkers as potential predictors of mental health in the aftermath of non-COVID related traumatic life events. Based on such prediction of vulnerable groups using robust biomarkers, early preventive interventions could be developed in the future.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
Co-Investigators
Professor Dr. Klaus Lieb; Professor Dr. Oliver Tüscher
