GRK 2804: Women's mental health across the reproductive years

拟议中的国际研究培训小组（IRTG）汇集了来自瑞典<s:1>宾根大学和乌普萨拉大学的科学家。妇女心理健康研究小组努力加强对具有高度临床和社会意义的主题的跨学科研究和教育：妇女在整个生育年龄的心理健康。女性一生中会经历几次荷尔蒙的转变，这会影响大脑的可塑性以及她们的认知和情感过程，从而最终影响心理健康。在这些过渡阶段（青春期、怀孕期和更年期），患精神疾病的风险急剧增加，特别是在情感、焦虑和与压力有关的疾病方面。在我们的IRTG中，我们的目标是通过解决性激素变化背景下的特定假设，更好地理解激素过渡阶段与女性心理健康之间的关系。我们将强调消极效价和积极效价，因为许多精神障碍的特点是所谓的情绪偏见，即高水平的消极情绪和/或积极情绪体验的丧失。为此，我们将根据人类行为和（受折磨的）心理健康的翻译方法来定位所有项目。这将使我们能够针对消极（应激反应）和积极效价（奖励）领域的精神病理学的特定（神经）生物学过程，并涵盖不同的系统水平（从行为到大脑可塑性）。我们的长期目标是改善妇女精神障碍的预防、发现和治疗。为了实现这一目标，来自<s:1>宾根和乌普萨拉的申请者将结合他们强大的科学专业知识和临床经验，跨学科合作，共同收集和分析研究数据，最重要的是培养年轻科学家。由于妇女心理健康涉及许多超越学科界限的方面，申请人已经制定了一个以临床相关研究，国际交流和协同为中心的全面和独特的资格计划。我们将培养科学的卓越性和独立性，同时保证最大限度的支持。资格认证课程强调创新方面，如数字网络和平台的系统集成，以允许激烈的德国-瑞典交流。博士候选人将由一名德国和一名瑞典研究员监督，并由德国/瑞典团队指导，使他们能够从精心设计的指导计划中获益。因此，我们的IRTG努力为青年科学家的高水平教育建立一个富有成效和跨学科的环境，使<s:1>宾根和乌普萨拉处于整个生育年龄妇女心理健康研究和教育的前沿。

The proposed International Research Training Group (IRTG) assembles scientists from the University of Tübingen and Uppsala University, Sweden. The IRTG strives to enhance interdisciplinary research and education on a topic of high clinical and societal relevance: women’s mental health across the reproductive years. Women undergo hormonal transitions several times throughout their lives that can impact brain plasticity and their cognitive and emotional processes, thus ultimately influencing mental health. During these transition phases (puberty, pregnancy and menopause), the risk of mental illness increases dramatically, especially with regard to affective, anxiety and stress-related disorders. Within our IRTG we aim to better understand the associations between hormonal transition phases and women’s mental health by addressing specific hypotheses in the context of sex hormone variation. We will emphasize on negative and positive valence as many mental disorders are characterized by the so-called emotional bias, that is high levels of negative emotion and/or loss of positive emotional experience. To do so, we will orient all projects along a translational approach to human behavior and (afflicted) mental health. This will enable us to target specific (neuro)biological processes underlying psychopathology in the realm of negative (stress reactivity) and positive valence (reward), and to cover different system levels (from behavior to brain plasticity). Our long-term perspective is to improve prevention, detection and treatment of mental disorders in women. To fulfill this aim, applicants from Tübingen and Uppsala will combine their strong scientific expertise and clinical experience, collaborate across disciplines, jointly collect and analyze research data and most importantly educate young scientists. Since mental health of women involves many aspects that transcend disciplinary boundaries, the applicants have developed a comprehensive and unique qualification program centered on clinically relevant research, international exchange and synergy. We will foster scientific excellence and independence while at the same time guaranteeing maximal support. The qualification program emphasizes innovative aspects such as the systematic integration of digital networks and platforms to allow an intense German-Swedish exchange. Doctoral candidates will be supervised by a German and a Swedish researcher and mentored by German/Swedish teams, enabling them to profit from an elaborate mentoring program. Thus, our IRTG strives to establish a productive and interdisciplinary environment for high-level education of young scientists putting Tübingen and Uppsala at the forefront of research and education in women’s mental health across the reproductive years.