Bipolar Disorders Network

Technology and big data: perspectives in bipolar disorders

This meeting will discuss and present latest results in three areas of contemporary research in bipolar disorder: 1) Novel approaches to IT-based monitoring: The availability of wearable and scalable technology has revolutionized our ability to capture objective (sleep, activity, location etc) and subjective (self-reported mood), time-stamped, data in large cohorts of patients for prolonged observation periods. Here we will review the most recent advances in real time assessment of psychopathology and behavior in bipolar disorder using e-mental health technologies for self-assessment and objective markers. 2) Brain imaging technology: Considerable uncertainty exists about the defining brain changes associated with bipolar disorder. Understanding and quantifying the sources of uncertainty can help generate novel clinical hypotheses about etiology and assist in the development of biomarkers for indexing disease progression and prognosis. The most recent characterization of changes in subcortical brain morphology in patients with bipolar disorder from a coordinated large scale analysis of brain scans and clinical information from 20 studies around the world /ENIGMA consortium) will be presented; 3) Genomics and beyond: Several genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been performed for bipolar disorder and several vulnerability loci have been identified. Despite these successes, it is now becoming clear that we will not be able to fully grasp the genetic complexity of psychiatric disorder by GWAS alone, even with ever increasing sample sizes. More and more data suggest that, on the one hand, current GWAS data sets have not been exploited to the fullest extent, and that on the other hand, GWAS need to be complemented by intelligent mathematical modeling, pathway analyses, pharmacogenetic and epigenetic studies, imaging techniques, and novel genetic tools such as whole genome or exome sequencing. This session aims at outlining a methodological roadmap joining the aforementioned strategies in a truly synergistic way.  

When

21 September 2016, 08.00-15.00 

Meeting venue

Austria Center Vienna
Address: Bruno-Kreisky-Platz 1, A-1220 Vienna
Room: 1.61