Create the first brain atlas

A team of researchers from the group Biomedical Research Center in Mental Health Network (CIBERSAM) has led the creation of the First brain atlas which identifies specific patterns of the gray substance associated with the main Mental disorders

The group, specialized in image of disorders related to the mood and anxiety of the IDIBAPShas contributed a tool that will better understand the neuroanatomic bases of mental disorders and move towards a Better diagnosis and treatment For affected people.

“Having this atlas can help design diagnostic tools more precise and open the door to a future with interventions more personalized and aimed at specific brain regions, “said the IDIBAPS researcher and the first signatory of the article, Lydia Fortea.

The research has been published in the magazine Biological Psychiatryand has combined the data of 433 published studiesincluded almost 20,000 patients And more than 16,000 healthy controls.

One of its main objectives has consisted of overcoming the distortions that were presented when analyzing the differences in Gray substance Among people with mental disorders and individuals healthy precisely because of the existence of different disorders at the same time.

Thus, scientists have created a new technique of Meta-Three-dimensional analysis of brain images That takes into account the different concurrent disorders simultaneously, analyzing disorders such as nervous anorexia, schizophrenia, anxiety, bipolar disorder, major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress, attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity (ADHD), autism and limit disorder of personality.

“With this new approach, we have been able to detect more concrete patterns And differentiated for each disorder, something that was not possible with traditional methods (…) This validates the value of our method to better understand the correlates of these conditions in the brain, “explained the chief of the IDIBAPS group, professor of neuroscience of the UB, member of CIBERSAM and leader of the project, Joaquim Raduà.

The study has had the participation of more than 40 researchers of centers and hospitals of reference of Europe, North America and Asiaincluding institutions such as King’s College London (United Kingdom), Karolinska Institute (Sweden), University of California (United States) or Normal Beijing University (China).