BRAINSCAPES

The aim of BRAINSCAPES is to map in detail the biological mechanisms underlying multiple brain disorders ('brainscaping').

Recent genetic discovery studies have provided unprecedented insight into the genes involved in brain disorders. The next step is to use this knowledge for gaining mechanistic disease insight. In BRAINSCAPES we will develop novel analytic and experimental tools to study the functional consequences of risk genes on the function of specific cells, their circuits and functional output. We aim to provide insight into the molecular and cellular basis of complex brain disorders that can be used to design novel treatments.

News

February 23, 2023

Short report of the BRAINSCAPES Career afternoon

On February 22nd a BRAINSCAPES Career afternoon was organized by our Career and Training Committee. The aim of the event was to offer our PhD students and post-doctoral researchers the opportunity to gain practical insights into different career paths after completing a PhD or post-doctoral research period. As such we invited two consortium members and two external speakers to tell their career story. The interactive setup and lively discussions gave interesting insights which are hopefully of value for our new talents in shaping their own future career path.
Read More
This figure summarises all the ways genetic association results for the 12 individual psychiatric disorders were annotated and the extent to which annotations shared between psychiatric disorders were identified. First, overlap in SNPs, mapped genes, and genomic loci was examined. Subsequently, gene set and gene property analyses were conducted, examining, for each of the 12 psychiatric disorders, whether the genetic signal was enriched in 9,508 gene sets, 565 cell types and 53 tissue types. Partitioned LDSC was used to test for enrichment of 61 functional genomic categories. All pictures used in this figure are illustrations and do not reflect the actual pathways identified in the analysis.
December 12, 2022

Exploring the genetic overlap among twelve psychiatric disorders

In a study published in Nature Genetics, Cato Romero, Mats Nagel, and Sophie van der Sluis teamed up with colleagues from the Complex Trait Genetics department and the Million Veteran Program to scrutinize the genetic similarity of twelve psychiatric disorders. Besides identifying shared genes and biological substrates between pairs of disorders, they also elucidated the challenges jeopardizing the future success of cross-trait genetic research. 
Read More
November 28, 2022

Optimizing study designs for iPSC-based disease modelling

In a study published in Molecular Psychiatry on Nov 24th, three Brainscapes teams across two work packages worked together to optimize statistical power for iPSC-based study designs. Their analyses demonstrate that published case-control iPSC studies are generally underpowered. 
Read More
October 6, 2022

BRAINSCAPES consortium day 2022

On Friday, September 30, the BRAINSCAPES annual meeting was held in Leiden at the CORPUS congress center. Over 50 members participated in the event and well represented the 7 institutes that are involved in the project.
Read More
July 20, 2022

Characterising social stress responsive ventral tegmental area neurons

Researchers from UMC Utrecht characterized neurons in the ventral tegmental area that respond to stress, paving the way for future research into the functional contribution of this population to stress-driven changes in reward processing.
Read More
June 12, 2022 / our-news

A map of dopamine signals across the brain

Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience reveal new functional insights on the dopamine signals across the brain, and publish their findings in PNAS.
Read More
February 8, 2022 / our-news

Brainscapes scientists identify a yet unknown neural mechanism of habit formation

Researchers from the Amsterdam UMC, and part of the Brainscapes consortium, now show findings that challenge the status quo in the field of behavioral neuroscience.
Read More
October 20, 2021 / our-news

Brainscapes participates in major successful brain mapping initiative

Two co-leaders of the Brainscapes consortium have contributed to successfully map the different cell types of the motor cortex and other cortical areas in the brain.
Read More
September 21, 2021 / our-news

New genetic causes for Alzheimer’s discovered

An international research team has conducted large-scale genetic research into the different backgrounds of the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The researchers discovered new genes and biological mechanisms that contribute to Alzheimer's disease.
Read More
1 2