About the Mental Health BioResource
The NIHR BioResource for Mental Health focuses on recruiting participants experiencing mental health conditions, as well as healthy controls.
We use web portals to recruit and have nearly 25,000 participants who have joined our study about depression and anxiety.
Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression (GLAD) is the largest such bioresource and has extensive phenotypic information and genetic data.
Depression and anxiety are the most common mental health disorders worldwide. In the UK, 1 in 3 people will experience symptoms during their lifetime. The GLAD Study aims to better understand depression and anxiety in order to find effective treatments and improve the lives of people experiencing these disorders.
A similar approach is being used to recruit participants to the Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative (EDGI). Apart from those with anorexia we also recruit conditions such as bulimia, binge eating and non-specified eating disorders.
Our aim is to collect the psychological, medical, and genetic information of 10,000 people with experience of any eating disorder. This will help us to better understand the role both our genes and environment play in the development of these illnesses.
COVID
In response to the pandemic we launched COVID19-related projects; one to assess mental health during the pandemic (COPING; COVID19 Psychiatry and Neuropsychiatry Genetics) and another to study impact on the brain. The recently launched COVID-CNS project will study acute neurological effects of COVID-19, which will provide vital information about the interrelationship between infection and psychiatry.
Our Centres and Programmes
The NIHR BioResource is a network of Centres that recruit participants locally and lead research programmes.
