Cognitive and behavioural biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions

医疗/精神卫生保健领域的一个最新发展是使用在线系统来支持“谈话疗法”的提供。实际上，这项创新是利用互联网和移动设备技术，允许治疗师通过基于文本的对话，通过患者的移动设备向患者提供认知行为疗法(CBT)(即谈话疗法)。CBT是一种通过将问题分解成较小的问题并避免负面行为模式来教个人克服焦虑和/或抑郁的疗法。申请者在这一应用程序背后提供一个数字平台，培训和支持治疗师为许多NHS信托基金提供这些CBT服务。目前的系统只通过基于文本的交流将治疗师与患者联系起来。申请者认为，有可能收集更多的数据，这些数据可能对治疗师非常有用，并可能极大地提高CBT治疗条款的有效性。该研究项目旨在收集和探索这些“数字认知和行为生物标记物”的潜在价值。这些行为生物标志物的例子可能是：*焦虑发作时受试者的身体位置；*抑郁发作期间社交媒体的使用和互动模式。该项目将从一组CBT患者中收集大量此类信息。将对这些数据进行分析，以确定这些认知和行为生物标记物与个人状况之间是否存在关系。该项目的重点是实施高度先进的软件技术，以确保只有有意义的、临床上有用的信息才能反馈给治疗师，以改善精神卫生保健服务。该项目的另一个目标是设计一般人群心理健康筛查技术。据设想，人们的手机可以转化为早期的精神健康筛查设备，并根据需要指导人们进行适当的治疗。由于该项目具有临床、伦理和个人敏感的性质，该团队已采取相当大的措施，确保该项目由外部专家和患者代表监督。该项目将有一个患者小组、顾问组和网络安全顾问，以确保所使用的方法是可靠的和尽可能安全的。主要申请者和支持合作伙伴在解决此类患者群体的隐私问题方面经验丰富，并为满足最佳实践要求而自豪。

A recent development in the medical/mental healthcare sector is the use of online systems to support the delivery of "talking therapies". In effect this innovation is to use internet and mobile device technology to allow a therapist to delivery cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) (i.e. talking therapy) to a patient over their mobile device via a text-based conversation. CBT is a therapy that teaches the individual to overcome their anxiety and/or depression by breaking their problems down into smaller issues and avoiding negative patterns of behaviour.The applicant, behind this application, provides a digital platform that trains and support the therapist provide these CBT services to a number of NHS Trusts. The current system only links the therapist to the patient via text-based communication. The applicants believe there is the potential to collect additional data that could be extremely useful for the therapist and could dramatically improve the effectiveness of the CBT therapy provision. The enclosed research project aims to collect and explore the potential value of these "digital cognitive and behavioural biomarkers". Examples of these behavioural biomarkers could be:* The physical location of the subject during an anxiety attack;* Patterns of social media use and interaction during bouts of depression.This project will collect substantial volumes of this information from a set of CBT patients. This data will be analysed to determine if there are relationships between these cognitive and behavioural biomarkers and the individuals condition. The project is crucially focused on the implementation of highly advanced software technology to ensure only meaningful, clinically useful, information is fed back to the therapist to improve mental healthcare provision. A further goal of the project is to devise general population mental health screening techniques. It is envisioned that people's mobiles phones can be transformed into early stage mental health screening devices and direct people to appropriate treatment accordingly.Due to the sensitive clinical, ethical and personal nature of this project, the team has taken considerable steps to ensure the project is overseen by external experts and patient representatives. The project will have a Patients Panel, Advisory Group and cybersecurity advisors to ensure the methods used are robust and as safe as possible. Both the lead applicant and supporting partner are highly experienced at addressing privacy concerns, for such patient populations, and pride themselves on meeting best practice requirements.