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News

FAMILY Secondments: Patricia in Aarhus

Postdoctoral researcher Patricia Camprodon-Boadas from Hospital Clinic Barcelona – Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) had the opportunity to visit the Psychosis Research Unit at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, led by Professor Ole Mors. 🧠

Read Patricias reflection on her research stay here:
During my 4-week research stay in August 2024, I became familiar with the remarkable team working on the Danish High Risk and Resilience Study, one of the familial high risk cohorts involved in the FAMILY Project. My time there allowed me to focus on key tasks related to the harmonization of clinical data, an essential part of FAMILY. The experience not only broadened my research perspective but also gave me the chance to engage with highly skilled professionals in the field of mental health research.
Aarhus is a lovely city, and I thoroughly enjoyed the balance between work and sightseeing. The collaborative environment and the dedication of the team made the experience truly enriching.
If you ever have the chance to immerse yourself in a research stay abroad, I highly recommend Aarhus as a destination!

Thank you, Patricia, for sharing these insights with us!

News

FAMILY at 21st Biennial Congress of the EPA Section Epidemiology & Social Psychiatry in Lausanne, Switzerland

On September 11th, 2024, at the 21st Biennial Congress of the EPA Section Epidemiology & Social Psychiatry in Lausanne, Switzerland, we had an inspiring session on “Early Risk and Protective Profiles Assessed before the Onset of Psychopathology among Offspring at High Familial Risk of Severe Mental Illnesses”, chaired by the brilliant Kerstin von Plessen and Caroline Vandeleur.

Neeltje van Haren, Anne Thorup, Caroline Vandeleur, Manon Hillegers and Patricia Camprodon-Boadas from the FAMILY consortium presented key results from their familial high risk (fHR) cohort studies, providing valuable insights into early mental health risk factors. 🧠

We would like to thank the audience for their questions and engagement and the organizers of this congress for the opportunity to share our research! 👏

12 September 2024
News

Running in the FAMILY – understanding and predicting the intergenerational transmission of mental illness

van Houtum LAEM, Baaré WFC, Beckmann CF, Castro-Fornieles J, Cecil CAM, Dittrich J, Ebdrup BH, Fegert JM, Havdahl A, Hillegers MHJ, Kalisch R, Kushner SA, Mansuy IM, Mežinska S, Moreno C, Muetzel RL, Neumann A, Nordentoft M, Pingault JB, Preisig M, Raballo A, Saunders J, Sprooten E, Sugranyes G, Tiemeier H, van Woerden GM, Vandeleur CL, van Haren NEM

Children of parents with mental illness are more likely to develop a mental illness themselves. This so-called intergenerational transmission of mental illness is not given adequate attention in clinical settings, diagnostics, or childcare. This results in delays in identifying mental health issues in young children, missing opportunities for prevention through protective measures and resilience building. This is where the FAMILY project steps in. The EU-funded FAMILY project is a collaboration between researchers from Europe and the US with the goal of understanding why, how, and when mental illnesses are passed from parents to children. The project focuses on changes in the brain, the epigenome, and genetic and environmental risks, comparing children of parents with and without mental illness, and using relevant animal models for research. The project also uses modern technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to build a prediction model to help understanding risk for and resilience against mental illness. This model is supposed to estimate the likelihood of a child developing a mental illness if their parents are affected. In addition, the FAMILY project looks at the social and ethical issues related to predicting risks. Overall, this work aims to prepare clinics and hospitals for the potential future use of predictive tools.

This consortium paper summarises the FAMILY project aims to achieve three main objectives:

  • advance our understanding of why, how, and when severe mental illnesses are passed down in families and identify the best timing for preventive and intervention measures,
  • create statistical models that help predict which children are more likely to develop mental illnesses at specific times given certain risk and resilience factors, and
  • provide insights into the social and ethical implications of predicting mental health risks.

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.