Description
Contributors
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Armin Raznahan, M.D., Ph.D, National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Research Program, National Institutes of Health, MD, USA
Dr. Raznahan is a Lasker Clinical Research Scholar and Chief of the NIMH Developmental Neurogenomics Unit (DNU). The DNU is dedicated to better understanding the biology of childhood-onset neuropsychiatric disorders in ways that might ultimately help to improve disease prediction, detection and treatment. Together with a network of collaborators, the DNU works towards this goal in two mutually-informative ways. First, large-scale longitudinal neuroimaging datasets are used to study the architecture of brain development in health, and hone how brain organization is probed in atypically developing groups. Second, the DNU uses a “genetics-first” strategy to study the relationship between atypical brain development and neuropsychiatric symptoms. This effort involves gathering “deep-phenotypic” data (spanning measures of gene expression, brain structure/function, psychophysiology, cognition and behavior) in diverse genetic disorders which all increase risk for neuropsychiatric impairment. Cross-cutting themes of special interest within the DNU include sex-differences, allometry, and structure-function relationships within the central nervous system.