Research lines

• Psychotic and affective disorders in children and adolescents

  The research line has been active for the last fourteen years. Both diseases are considered neurobiological disorders with an important genetic component, and their early onset forms present greater severity and impairment than the adult forms. Child and adolescent onset of psychotic and affective disorders has been associated with poor prognosis, poor functional outcome and broad cognitive deficits. Currently, our research group is exploring these disorders with two different approaches: studying high risk children and adolescents and studying longitudinally samples that had already developed schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

• Anorexia and other eating disorders

  Our group has studied clinical, neuropsychological and brain alterations in adolescents diagnosed with these disorders over the last fifteen years. We have published important scientific evidence in the areas of clinical care, cognition and neuroimaging. Specifically we are interested in biological changes underpinning the weight recovery in adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders.

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette syndrome

  We study patients’ neuroimaging and genetic characteristics in order to differentiate endophenotypes and also use machine learning methodology to predict disorder severity. In recent years our group has increased its international activity and has joined the ENIGMA OCD group. Our researchers have published studies in some of the leading international psychiatry journals. With regard to Tourette syndrome, we have participated in two international projects, EMTICS and the Collaborative Genomic Study of Tourette’s Disorder.

• Autism spectrum disorders (ASD)

  Our group has published studies on cognitive and neuroimaging abnormalities in ASD children and adolescents and their siblings as well as ongenetic variants in a sample of children and adolescents with ASD and has contributed to the european EUAIMS. Currently has joined the ENIGMA-ASD initiative and has obtained an IMI European grant to develop new pharmacological treatments for ASD.