Schizophrenia & affective disorders

Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program

Leader: Eric Bui

Mood, anxiety, and stress-related disorders are the most prevalent psychiatric conditions, affecting millions worldwide. They cause significant distress and impairment, and are a leading cause of suicide attempts and completed suicides.

Our program of research specifically focuses on discovering the fundamental causes of mood, anxiety, and stress-related disorders in humans in order to develop and implement new, more effective treatment strategies, including using pharmacotherapy, neurostimulation, and psychotherapeutic approaches.

Schizophrenia

Leader: Sonia Dollfus

The team focused on schizophrenic disorders investigates neural networks in patients with schizophrenia in using multimodal neuroimaging (anatomical and functional MRIs, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy).

Our researches showed that patients presented (i) a reduction in leftward hemispheric lateralization for language that might be underlain by both (ii) grey matter abnormalities through a volume reduction in the regions involved in language and (iii) white matter (WM) abnormalities characterized by a decreased integrity of the regions and fasciculi that underlie the language network.

We also observed that (iv) abnormalities of the intra-hemispheric anatomical connectivity (left fronto-temporal fasciculi) were found in the patients with schizophrenia whereas a decreased inter-hemispheric connectivity (callosal fibers) was only observed in patients with auditory verbal hallucinations.
Finally, we demonstrated that (v) patients treated with typical antipsychotics (as haloperidol) presented a decreased WM integrity than those treated with clozapine.

The team also uses multimodal imaging to study the impact of various therapeutic strategies (magnetic stimulation guided by neuronavigation, adapted physical activity) on the human brain, in healthy subjects and patients with schizophrenia; white matter changes (Diffusion Tensor Imaging), glutamate and N‐Acetyl aspartate (Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy), default networks (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) are particularly investigated (see clinical trials).