Research on mental illness and substance use

Where Treur primarily investigates the cause, Van der Pas seeks to develop a method for determining cause and effect in a study with a lot of data. The symptoms of serious mental illnesses, such as depression, bipolar and psychotic disorders, are known to run deep. They also involve other (comorbid) health problems, such as (excessive) substance use and cardiovascular disease.

Mental Illness: Cause or Effect

However, the question is whether substance use and cardiovascular disease are the result of psychiatric disorders or vice versa. After all, it could also be that substance use and cardiovascular disease increase the risk of a (more serious) mental illness. It’s up to Treur to find out. In doing so, he will use different search methods side by side.

To determine whether there is a genetic predisposition that explains substance use and cardiovascular disease as well as psychiatric disorders, or whether it is a causal relationship, Treur will use large genetic biobanks and innovative statistical methods. But also from long-term studies, in which the health of a group of people is monitored over a long period of time, such as the Helius study. Treur intends to immediately use the research results in practice. This will improve the treatment of people with a mental disorder.

Serious mental illnesses are common all over the world. It is remarkable that a disproportionate number of people of non-European descent are affected. It is true that many large ongoing studies take place primarily among “white participants”. The populations studied have only recently become more diverse. Treur also wants to look at different ethnicities to learn more about this issue among ethnic minorities than before.

Correlation and causality

It Research in searching for causal relationships in large datasets, is what Pase receives his ERC grant for. Establishing causal relationships is difficult when an intervention cannot be randomly assigned to a research participant because it is unethical or virtually impossible. Like when you want to investigate the effects of smoking, a vegetarian diet or abortion. Establishing a correlation or association is what researchers often deal with.

In order to reliably find causal relationships and thus extract more valuable insights from the data, Van der Pas will be able to do a lot with his mathematical background to develop new methods for this purpose. He will work from multiple perspectives on causality and also investigate the added value of combining datasets. The Starting Grant allows her to hire two PhD students and two postdocs to carry out research with her.

Initial grants from the ERC

Fellowships are awarded to a select number of outstanding scientists European Research Council (ERC), part of the European Commission. This year, 408 researchers and an amount of 636 million euros are entitled to it. The grant is part of the Horizon Europe programme, which helps young scientists start their own projects, form teams and realize their most promising ideas.