CHBH Seminar Series: Professor Mark Bellgrove

These seminars are free to attend and are open to all, both within and outside the University. Please register your interest to attend using the link above.

We are delighted to announce that the Centre for Human Brain Health (CHBH) will welcome Professor Mark Bellgrove, Director of Research at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, and Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at Monash University, to present a CHBH Seminar (both via Zoom and in-person), taking place on Monday 30th May, 11:00-12:00 BST.

If you wish to attend, you can register your interest using the link above.
If you wish to have a 1:1 meeting with Prof Bellgrove during his visit, please contact Seminar host Dr Magda Chechlacz. 

Update on the genetics of ADHD and the mechanistic insights offered by cognitive endophenotypes

Endophenotypes are heritable quantifiable traits that are argued to index an individual’s genetic liability to develop a given disease or disorder.  Impetus for the identification of endophenotypes for psychiatric disorders was initially driven by earlier failed attempts to identify replicable genetic associations, where the heterogeneity between subjects was presumed to swamp the small effects of the genetic signals in relatively small samples. Endophenotypes, such as structural or functional brain imaging or neurocognitive measures, on the other hand, were assumed to have less complex genetic architectures. As a result, it was argued that they should be more closely related to gene function than subjectively rated symptoms of a disorder, and that their use should aid gene discovery.  Although in reality the genetics of the proposed endophenotypes has turned out to be arguably just as complex as the genetics of the disorders themselves, I suggest that the concept of the endophenotype retains utility for understanding the cognitive and neural circuits mediating genetic risk for psychiatric disorders. Here I provide evidence from a large general population cohort – the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study – that cognitive measures of working memory and response time variability mediate the relationship between polygenic risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and trait measures of attention problems. In contrast, whereas polygenic risk for major depressive disorder and autism spectrum disorder were also associated with ADHD-like traits, we found no relationships with any of the potential cognitive endophenotypes indicating that the mediation effect was specific to the genetic risk for ADHD and did not generalise to genetic risk for other psychiatric disorders. Together, these findings provide evidence from a general population sample that working memory and reaction time variability can be considered endophenotypes for ADHD that causally mediate the relationship between polygenetic risk and ADHD-like traits

Speaker Biography

Mark Bellgrove is Director of Research at the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, and a Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience in the School of Psychological Sciences, at Monash University, where he leads a multidisciplinary team studying the biological basis of attention, cognitive control and decision making in both health and disorder (e.g., ADHD). His laboratory comprises state-of-the-art cognitive neuroscience suites alongside molecular facilities for functional genomics. His group has made significant progress in defining the molecular genetic and neurochemical drivers of attention and cognitive control. He is President of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association and Secretary General of the World ADHD Federation

These seminars are free to attend and are open to all, both within and outside the University. Please register your interest to attend using the link above.