Brain diseases are complex and psychiatric cohorts are often very heterogeneous. To achieve a better personalised medicine, we need to model patients in case-by-case basis. Critically, disease heterogeneity can only be dissected and understood by linking symptoms to biological systems effectively. Normative modelling addresses these points by estimating a statistical distribution of the population, and then drawing inferences on how specifically a given subject departs from this distribution, i.e. from normal. While this approach has been used to characterise how brain anatomy diverge in disease, it is unknown how to apply it to brain function. This project will develop a novel methodology to estimate population normative distributions of brain dynamics, as measured by fMRI and EEG. Then, I will apply this new approach to the 43,000-subjects UK Biobank data set, in order to find a better stratification of insomnia —the second most common psychiatric condition in the world.

Read more about the DFF grants at Aarhus University at: https://health.au.dk/display/artikel/10-forskningsprojekter-faar-31-millioner-fra-danmarks-frie-forskningsfond