Interdisciplinary focus on mental health

At the Bergen Mental Health Research Center , psychologists, psychiatrists, geneticists and basic neuroscience researchers are working together to improve our understanding of mental problems.

Serious psychiatric problems such as schizophrenia and manic-depression are major causes of stress for sufferers and their families, and are also among the most expensive types of illness to treat. Although some scientific breakthroughs have been made in the fields of genetic material and treatment, there are still important gaps in our understanding of these illnesses that prevent us from providing better treatment for this group of patients.

Genetics and effects of treatment

“If we are to make any progress in this field, we will need to adopt an interdisciplinary perspective and take an integrated look at basic brain mechanisms, genetics, neuropsychology and clinical psychiatry. This is why we set up the Bergen Mental Health Research Center , a place where leading experts in these fields of research can work together,” says Hugo Jørgensen, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Bergen and leader of the centre’s clinical psychiatry group.

In the course of the past few years, a good deal has been done to identify genetic explanations for why certain people become ill. Scientists have also been looking at genetic effects in terms of their ability to predict the effects of treatment and the risk of side effects.

“The problems that we are studying are extremely complex, which makes it difficult to start out from a basis of traditional diagnostic criteria. Patients with schizophrenia, for example, can be very different,” says Jørgensen.

Mapping memory and language

The centre will not only study the classic symptoms of psychosis, but will also include cognitive functions such as memory and language in the mapping process. New ways of grouping patients will offer a better point of departure for research and treatment.

One aspect of the research involves the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a method on which Kenneth Hugdahl , leader of the centre and professor of biological psychology, has done a great deal of work. An advanced MR instrument, jointly owned by Bergen Health Region and the University of Bergen , has recently been installed at Haukeland University Hospital . This has given the centre access to a more powerful advanced tool than it had before, increasing its ability to use fMRI to study both healthy people and patients with psychiatric problems. This is important in attempts to relate mental disease to genetics and cognitive functions.

“The new machine will enable us to study a larger number of people and will help us to obtain better results,” says Hugdahl.

The instrument produces an image of brain activity without the use of radioactive irradiation (x rays). This means, for example, that we can see where individual cognitive functions are located, or study how patients respond to therapy or medicines.

Strong international links

“Utilising the results of basic research and relating cognitive functions to genetic information will enable us to learn more about how genetic material determines the type of symptoms we suffer, mental functions and reactions to medical treatment,” says Hugo Jørgensen.

The Bergen Mental Health Research Center consists of groups of people from four fields of research: functional genomics, basic neurosciences, clinical psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience, the last of which is led by Professor Hugdahl himself.

“We also have strong international links: four of our research fellows are financed by the German Krupp Foundation, which has also financed fellowships at the Universities of Greifswald and Trier . This means that these research fellows are part of the international research milieu from the very start,” says Hugdahl.

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