About
Mental disorders are leading causes of disability and morbidity, and among the costliest medical conditions for society. But neither their clinical foundations nor their underlying mechanisms are clear. Therefore, researchers from different disciplines are trying to understand mental disorders better, exploring them from the molecular to the psychosocial levels, giving rise to a spectrum of perspectives on mental health.
The UiO:Life Science funded project 4MENT aims to shed light on those perspectives through a cross-disciplinary approach. We have invited lead scientists with diverse backgrounds to discuss their own perspectives on mental health.
Program
Prof. Eiko Fried’s interests are how to best understand, measure, model, and classify mental health problems. To do so, he conceptualizes mental health or illness as emergent properties that arise from complex, dynamical, transdiagnostic, biopsychosocial systems, rather than as clear-cut categories with simple causes. He works at the intersection of clinical psychology, psychiatry, epidemiology, methodology, and complexity science, and enjoys learning about philosophy of science.
Dr. Thomas Wolfers works in the fields of brain imaging, genetics and computational psychiatry and aims to improve our understanding of individual-level factors contributing to mental health and disorders. In his works he uses machine learning technology to disentangle differences between patients by mapping individuals in reference to an estimated population norm in a high dimensional (environmental, behavioral and biological) space. In this way, he embeds the multifactorial nature of complex diseases into an analytical framework that is relevant for the individual patient. Currently, he is a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Oslo and works for 4MENT and NORMENT as well as the department of psychology.
Dr. Charlotte Boccara’s interests are the role of sleep in cognitive development of children. Sleep is essential for healthy cognitive development, but we still know very little about the neural mechanisms that promote cognitive development during sleep. Charlotte is the project leader of “Sleep, Cognition and Development” at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences at the University of Oslo, and has a background in Neurosciences from Paris, France and Trondheim, Norway.
| Time | |
|---|---|
| 12:00 | Welcome and introduction by Yunpeng Wang |
| 12:05 | Eiko Fried |
| 12:30 | Thomas Wolfers |
| 12:55 | Charlotte Boccara |
| 13:20 | Q&A with Esten Leonardsen |
Registration
- The registration is now closed.
- If you didn't register before the deadline, please contact Ingeborg Helle Vedde (i.h.vedde@medisin.uio.no) if you want the Zoom link to the event.
Participation
- The event is open to everyone and free to attend.
- The event will take place on Zoom.
- As a participant you will be anonymous, but please feel free to ask questions in the Q&A.