Structural brain development during adolescence and its relation to psychiatric disorders

Speaker: Kirstie Whitaker, University of Cambridge 

Abstract:

Adolescence is a period of human brain growth and high incidence of mental health disorders. I will present my work within the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network (NSPN; www.nspn.org.uk) on cortical myelination between the ages of 14 and 24. I will show, consistently in two cohorts, that age-related changes in adolescence are concentrated on the more densely connected hubs of the human structural connectome. I will demonstrate the power of integrating open data sets such as the Allen Brain Atlas with non-invasive imaging techniques: specifically by linking the expression of schizophrenia risk genes to adolescent brain development.

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