1 Boring Old Man

In the last post, I mentioned two distinct groups [BRAINnet and Brain Resources], but the distinction between them is not altogether clear. In this post, I’ll first simply try to clarify what BRAINnet actually is, not evaluate it. That’s for a later time:

^{The goal of BRAINnet is to expand our knowledge on what constitutes healthy development of the brain across all ages and what goes awry when brain disorders occur. To accomplish this goal BRAINnet has formed a global consortium of investigators, and provides them with access to multiple types of data acquired from the same individuals.  The immediate goal of access to each set of data is to write a specific paper for peer-reviewed publication. The topic of this paper is approved by the BRAINnet membership working in the same or related areas.}

^{BRAINnet was established in 2003 as a global linkage of scientists, based in five founding sites. Since 2003, the member network has grown substantially. Publication output has reached an average of one paper per week, with many published in leading scientific journals such as Molecular Psychiatry, Journal of Neuroscience, Neuropsychopharmacology, American Journal of Psychiatry and Biological Psychiatry.}

^{BRAINnet Foundation was set up in 2011 as a result of the global growth in membership and outcomes and the need to fully understand the brain. The goal of the BRAINnet Foundation is to accommodate the growth of BRAINnet as a transparent and independent network that facilitates scientific outcomes and their benefits to the wider community. The BRAINnet Foundation is an independent, non-profit entity providing the stewardship and governance of BRAINnet operating via this website.}

^{The Brain Resource International Database is the largest available library of  human brain health information acquired using standardized measures, so that multiple sources of data are available on the same individuals. As of June 2009, data from the Brain Resource International Database has been made available to BRAINnet from: 5000 subjects with confirmed status as healthy, 1000 subjects with confirmed status as clinical disorder or extreme function: Major Depressive Disorder, ADHD, First Onset Schizophrenia, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Alzheimer’s Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, Traumatic Brain Injury, Sleep Apnea, Panic Disorder, Anorexia Nervosa, Obesity.}

^{The following types of data are available for these subjects, acquired using standardized protocols and platforms: Screening Questionnaires; General and Emotional Cognition; Brain-Body Functions; Genetics; MRI, fMRI and DTI.}

^{Under these protocols, each measure has been implemented under the supervision, sign off and publication of experts in each field.  The quality [including psychometric properties] of the measures have also been established and published.}

Interactions between BDNF Val66Met polymorphism and early life stress predict brain and arousal pathways to syndromal depression and anxiety.
by Gatt JM, Nemeroff CB, Dobson-Stone C, Paul RH, Bryant RA, Schofield PR, Gordon E, Kemp AH, Williams LM.
Molecular Psychiatry. 2009 Jul;14(7):681-95.

^{Because Brain Resource International Database uses standardized measures to acquire all information, different types of information from clinical history to genetics can be integrated within the same individuals, across cohorts [normative and clinical] and across sites. The focus on a standardized, integrative approach was developed to:}
^{• Realize the emergence of Integrative Neuroscience, as established by its founder, Evian Gordon, Chair and CEO Brain Resource Ltd.}
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrative_neuroscience].
^{• Address the challenges of neuroscience and brain health research. A Major challenges were highlighted in the article on Databasing the Human Brain in Nature (2000): the proliferation of specialties that do not talk to each other, the difficulties of data collation, and the tradition of data hugging by scientists. The need for large scale science to understand the brain has been highlighted [Insel et al., 2004. Nature Neuroscience].}
^{• The strategic direction in the integration of neuroscience and psychiatry, reflected in the development of DSM-V and the need to inform clinical diagnosis with brain insights. This direction has been highlighted by NIH Directors (Nature Neuroscience Reviews, 2007) and in the NIH Strategic Plan.}

^{• Inaugural Chair and CEO: Professor Lea Williams: Dr. Lea Williams is a Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at Sydney Medical School-Western, University of Sydney, and Director of the Brain Dynamics Center of Westmead Millennium Institute and University of Sydney. She is currently a Pfizer senior research fellow.}
^{• Executive Director: Professor Steve Koslow: Dr. Koslow provides consultant science advisory services on personalized medicine to Brain Resource Limited. He is Research Director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. In 1982 he was appointed as the first Director of the Neuroscience Research Branch at the NIMH. In 1993, Dr. Koslow initiated the multi-Agency initiative on the Human Brain Project (HBP) to establish an enabling electronic communication computer based distributed database and knowledge management system for the neuroscience community. In 1999 Dr. Koslow was appointed as the first Director of the Office on Neuroinformatics and an Associate Director of the NIMH. He continues to serve as the chair of the Federal Interagency Coordinating Committee on the HBP (FICC-HBP) having worked to extend the HBP globally using the term ‘Neuroinformatics’. He has also served as the Director of External Relations at the Allen Institute for Brain Science.}
^{• Non-executive Director: Dr Evian Gordon [Brain Resource Representative]: Dr Gordon has over 20 years of experience in human brain research. He was the founding director of the Brain Dynamics Centre at Westmead Hospital and a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Sydney. He edited the first book on "Integrative Neuroscience" and has more than 160 publications.}

^{Researchers have an opportunity to acquire their own new data using the same standardized protocols as used in BRAINnet datasets. This opportunity is administered independently from BRAINnet, and is known as the Discovery option. Researchers using Discovery will typically have their own research grants to acquire new data. These researchers will have the opportunity to ultimately add their new data to BRAINnet. This would have a multiplying effect on the opportunities available to the researcher(s). For instance, by adding their data to BRAINnet, they would then be able to compare their dataset on say, schizophrenia, with data sets from other clinical groups such as depression, acquired using the identical platforms.}

• The Mayflower [30 minutes]:
• Standardized Assessments [1 minute]:
• Dr. Evian Gordon [10 minutes]:

Early life stress combined with serotonin 3A receptor and brain-derived neurotrophic factor valine 66 to methionine genotypes impacts emotional brain and arousal correlates of risk for depression
by Gatt Justine M; Nemeroff Charles B; Schofield Peter R; Paul Robert H; Clark C Richard; Gordon Evian; Williams Lea M
Biological Psychiatry 2010 68(9):818-24.

^{BACKGROUND: Depression will be the second largest burden of disease by 2020. Developing new tools for identifying risk and ultimately prevention of depression relies on elucidating the integrative relationships between susceptibility markers from gene-stress interactions and how they impact emotional brain and arousal systems. They have largely been studied in isolation.}

^{METHODS: We examined how genetic (brain-derived neurotrophic factor [BDNF] valine 66 to methionine [Val66Met] and serotonin receptor gene 3A [HTR3A]) and early life stress susceptibility factors interact in predicting electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry, emotion-elicited heart rate, and self-reported negativity bias, each correlates of risk for depression. Caucasian volunteers (n = 363) were derived from the Brain Resource International Database, via the Brain Research And Integrative Neuroscience Network.}

^{RESULTS: Individuals with both BDNF methionine and HTR3A CC risk genotypes and early life stressors demonstrated a profile of elevated emotion-elicited heart rate and right frontal hyper-activation with right parietotemporal hypoactivation in EEG asymmetry. Elevations in heart rate were a moderator of negativity bias.}

^{CONCLUSIONS: The findings provide new evidence that these gene-stress susceptibility factors contribute to a brain-arousal profile indicative of risk for depression. They are a step toward identifying biological markers for detecting risk before overt symptoms. It would be valuable for future studies to examine comorbidity and specificity issues; for instance, whether these gene-stress factors contribute in different ways to the partially distinct EEG asymmetry profiles found with anxiety.}