Brain mediators of schizophrenia: An extreme genetic risk approach

In this project, funded by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF Distinguished Investigator grant) we will establish multimodal intermediate imaging phenotypes for schizophrenia using large scale samples for discovery and validation by deep-phenotyping in existing patient-samples with extreme genetic risk scores. For this purpose we will identify and validate potential mediating multimodal neuroimaging phenotypes of the effect of extreme genetic risk scores, neurocognitive performance and clinical relevant behavioral phenotype in three different large cohorts. We will then assess the relevance of these imaging-genetic mediators by re-assessing patients with extremely high and low genetic risk scores for SCZ. The study will be performed in cooperation with Stephan Ripke, Charité.