Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-analysis (ENIGMA): Antisocial Behaviour working group

这个项目的首要目标是探索早期生活经历、大脑活动和行为之间的关系。拟议的博士学位将使用几种方法来解决这个问题，重点是临床/法医和社区样本中的精神病。调查精神病的神经解剖学相关性的研究倾向于关注临床/法医人群中的男性，并依赖于来自西方国家的样本。因此，在社区样本中探索这种关联，并将性别作为研究设计中的一个变量，仍然是相关的。该项目将使用从非西方社区收集的男性和女性样本数据。利用神经成像数据，它将检查精神病的维度测量、其子成分面、皮质密度和大脑网络连接之间的联系。另一个部分将集中于结构/功能MRI数据，涵盖整个生命周期，青少年的行为问题/障碍，以及成人的反社会人格障碍/精神病。脑成像和遗传数据的元/大分析将侧重于疾病和分类方法，以及维度方法，其中数据可以与维度测量联系起来，索引外化行为和环境风险因素。最后，该项目将使用神经成像表观遗传学方法超越基因组，并检查表观遗传修饰的作用。它将利用合作者提供的现有数据集，系统地检查早期生活经历、DNA甲基化、内化和外化行为以及结构/功能MRI数据之间的关系。希望这将进一步加深我们对精神病风险的分子机制的理解。该项目将结合心理学、神经影像学和计算机/数据科学的方法，这些方法共同将该项目置于反社会行为和精神病研究的前沿。

The overarching aim of this project is to explore how early life experiences, brain activity, and behaviour relate one another. The proposed PhD will use several approaches to address this question with a focus on psychopathy in both clinical/forensic and community samples. Studies investigating neuroanatomical correlates of psychopathy have tended to focus on males from clinical/forensic populations with a reliance on samples from Western nations. As such, it remains pertinent to explore such associations in community samples and consider sex as a variable within the research design. This project will use data collected from a non- Western community sample of males and females. Using neuroimaging data, it will examine associations between dimensional measures of psychopathy, its subcomponent facets, cortical density and brain network connectivity. A further component will focus on structural/functional MRI data covering the entire lifespan, conduct problems/disorder in youths, as well as antisocial personality disorder/psychopathy in adults. A meta-/mega-analyses of brain imaging and genetic data will focus on disorders and categorical approaches, and also dimensional approaches where data can be linked to dimensional measures indexing externalising behaviours and environmental risk factors. Finally, the project will use a neuroimaging epigenetic approach to go beyond the genome and examine the role of epigenetic modifications. It will capitalise on existing data sets available from collaborators to systematically examine the association between early life experiences, DNA methylation, internalising and externalising behaviours and structural/functional MRI data. It is hoped this will further our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of risk for psychopathy. The project will combine methods from psychology, neuroimaging, and computer/data science, which together put this project at the forefront of research on antisocial behaviour and psychopathy.