Addressing Global Environmental Challenges to Mental Health Using Population Neuroscience
Gunter Schumann, Ole A. Andreassen, Tobias Banaschewski, Vince D. Calhoun, Nicholas Clinton, Sylvane Desrivieres, Ragnhild Eek Brandlistuen, Jianfeng Feng, Soeren Hese, Esther Hitchen, Per Hoffmann, Tianye Jia, Viktor Jirsa, Andre F. Marquand, Frauke Nees, Markus M. Nöthen, Gaia Novarino, Elli Polemiti, Markus Ralser, Michael Rapp, Kerstin Schepanski, Tamara Schikowski, Mel Slater, Peter Sommer, Bernd Carsten Stahl, Paul M. Thompson, Sven Twardziok, Dennis van der Meer, Henrik Walter, Lars Westlye, Andreas Heinz, Tristram Lett, Nilakshi Vaidya, Emin Serin, Maja Neidhart, Marcel Jentsch, Roland Eils, Ulrike-Helene Taron, Tatjana Schütz, James Richard Banks, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, Heike Tost, Nathalie Holz, Emanuel Schwarz, Argyris Stringaris, Nina Christmann, Karina Jansone, Sebastian Siehl, Helga Ask, Sara Fernández-Cabello, Rikka Kjelkenes, Mira Tschorn, Sarah Jane Böttger, Antoine Bernas, Lena Marr, Guillem Feixas Viapiana, Francisco José Eiroa-Orosa, Jaime Gallego, Alvaro Pastor, Andreas J. Forstner, Isabelle Claus, Abigail Miller, Stefanie Heilmann-Heimbach, Mona Boye, Johannes Wilbertz, Karen Schmitt, Spase Petkoski, Séverine Pitel, Lisa Otten, Anastasios-Polykarpos Athanasiadis, Charlie Pearmund, Bernhard Spanlang, Elena Alvarez, Mavi Sanchez, Arantxa Giner, Paul Renner, Yanting Gong, Yuxiang Dai, Yunman Xia, Xiao Chang, Jingyu Liu, Allan Young, George Ogoh,- Psychiatry and Mental health
Importance
Climate change, pollution, urbanization, socioeconomic inequality, and psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused massive changes in environmental conditions that affect brain health during the life span, both on a population level as well as on the level of the individual. How these environmental factors influence the brain, behavior, and mental illness is not well known.
Observations
A research strategy enabling population neuroscience to contribute to identify brain mechanisms underlying environment-related mental illness by leveraging innovative enrichment tools for data federation, geospatial observation, climate and pollution measures, digital health, and novel data integration techniques is described. This strategy can inform innovative treatments that target causal cognitive and molecular mechanisms of mental illness related to the environment. An example is presented of the environMENTAL Project that is leveraging federated cohort data of over 1.5 million European citizens and patients enriched with deep phenotyping data from large-scale behavioral neuroimaging cohorts to identify brain mechanisms related to environmental adversity underlying symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and substance misuse.
Conclusions and Relevance
This research will lead to the development of objective biomarkers and evidence-based interventions that will significantly improve outcomes of environment-related mental illness.