Atypical neural processing in 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome and schizophrenia: Towards neuromarkers of disease progression and risk

Talks

Towards personalised neuromodulation in mental health: A non-invasive avenue of network research into dynamic brain circuits and their dysfunction
Prof. Marcus Kaiser
Done
From one-size-fits-all psychiatry to stratified psychiatry: Brain markers and heart-brain-coupling
Martijn Arns, PhD
Done
Do I want to know? Artificial intelligence as a predictive tool in the diagnosis and treatment of cognitive impairment. Development of EEG-based functional network analyses
Prof. Ira Haraldsen, MD
Done
Phase-amplitude coupling in EEG as a Parkinsonian biomarker
Prof. Thomas R. Knösche
Done
Clinical brain-computer interfaces: Challenges and new applications
Prof. Surjo Soekadar, MD
Done
Neural markers of motor cognition: What do we know and what’s next?
Claudia Gianelli, PhD
Done
Real brains in virtual worlds
Prof. Klaus Gramann
Done
Principles and challenges of fMRI-based ‘brain reading’
Prof. John-Dylan Haynes
Done
Own data, not hardware
Cecilia Mazzetti, PhD
Done
Schizophrenia: A temporal disorder?
Dr. Annemarie Wolff
Done

Session Chair

11/3/22, 10:00 AM - 11/3/22, 10:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) (30 minutes)

Prof. Sophie Molholm

Co-Director of the Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC), Professor at Departments of Pediatrics, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York at Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Professor Sophie Molholm is a Cognitive Neuroscientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with appointments

in the departments of Pediatrics, Neuroscience and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She uses multimodal brain imaging,

psychophysics, and standardized cognitive and clinical assessments to probe the brain processes underlying perception and

cognition in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric conditions such as autism and schizophrenia as well as rare genetic disorders

including 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and Rett syndrome. Her research is supported by federal and foundation grants. In addition to

running her lab, she serves as Co-Director of the NIH funded Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Research Center, and

an NIH supported training grant for postdoctoral fellows engaged in research on intellectual and developmental disabilities.

22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11.2DS) is a multisystemic disorder characterized by a wide range of clinical features,

ranging from life-threatening to less severe conditions. One-third of individuals with the deletion live with mild to moderate intellectual

disability; approximately 60% meet criteria for at least one psychiatric condition. 22q11.2DS has become an important model for

several medical, developmental, and psychiatric disorders. We have been particularly interested in understanding the risk for psychosis

in this population: Approximately 30% of the individuals with the deletion go on to develop schizophrenia. The characterization of

cognitive and neural differences between those individuals who develop schizophrenia and those who do not, despite being at

genetic risk, holds important promise in what pertains to the clarification of paths to disease and to the development of tools for early

identification and intervention.

Here I will discuss our electrophysiological (EEG) findings as potential markers for 22q11.2DS and the associated risk for psychosis,

focusing on evidence from auditory processing (auditory-evoked potentials and auditory adaptation), visual processing (visual-evoked

potentials and visual adaptation), and inhibition and error monitoring. Altogether these data suggest basic mechanistic and disease

process effects on neural processing in 22q11.2DS that are present in both early sensory and later cognitive processing, with possible

implications for phenotype and relevance as markers for psychosis and risk for schizophrenia.