Volunteering opportunity below - for people in Europe / Ireland:
iRELATE is a European Research Council funded project examining the impact of genes, early life experiences and the immune system on the brain. There is growing evidence of an important contribution of each of these factors towards risk for schizophrenia and other mental health problems.
Background:
There is evidence to suggest that certain aspects of our environment and genetic make-up influence how we think and feel. These aspects may cause differences in the parts of our brains that control thoughts and feelings. In this study we are interested in looking at how a person’s environment and genes influence their brain. A particular focus of the research is on examining whether these effects are related to changes in our immune system – the system that helps us identify infections such as viruses and mount a response. The two questions we want to address in this research are:
(1) Does the effect of genes that are already known to increase illness risk occur because of changes in our immune system?
(2) Does our early social environment (e.g. our childhood relationships) modify this relationship?
To address these questions, iRELATE uses a combination of state of the art neuroimaging, cognitive testing and molecular and genetic techniques to examine differences in genes and immune function across research participants, and how these may affect the brain. Research is carried out across two sites:
**University Hospital Galway: HRB Clinical Research Facility **
St. James’s Hospital: Welcome Trust – HRB Clinical Research Facility and the Centre for Advanced Medical Imaging (CAMI) .
Volunteers needed!
The iRELATE project is currently recruiting research volunteers. Volunteering consists of two assessment visits. The first visit will involve cognitive assessment, taking about 2.5 hours. The second visit will include an MRI scan, which will last around 2 hours. The first visit will take place at a clinical centre that is in your town (depending on where you live) and the MRI scan in the second visit will take place at the MRI facility located in St James Hospital, Dublin. To volunteer for iRELATE, please e-mail: iRELATE@nuigalway.ie.