Short Course Schedule:
Imaging and neuropsychology for clinicians
In association with the Division of Neuropsychology, Psychological Society of
Ireland, and with the Irish College of Psychiatry
Fri 31st May 2013
Venue: TCIN, Lloyd Institute, Trinity College Dublin
Fees: 120 Euros
Morning Session:
9.00 – 9.30
Registration
Session 1: A clinician’s guide to understanding imaging.
9.30 – 10.15
10.15– 11.00
Lecture 1: MRI – what it is and how it works, Arun Bokde
Lecture 2: EEG – uses past, present & future, Ed Lawlor
11.00 – 11.30
Coffee/Tea Break
Session 2: Advances in cognitive neuroscience I: Development & Aging
11.30 – 12.15
12.15 – 1.00
Lecture 3: Biomarkers & the brain: lessons learned from Epilepsy, Colin
Doherty
Lecture 4: Detecting Alzheimer's Disease: Biomarkers and Cognitive
Assessment, Brian Lawlor/Robert Coen
13.00 – 14.00
Lunch
Afternoon Session:
Session 3 Advances in cognitive neuroscience II: mental health
2.00–2.45
2.45–3.30
3.30–4.15
Lecture 5: Reconceptualising Bipolar disorder (Colm McDonald)
Lecture 6: Understanding disability in Schizophrenia (Gary Donohoe)
Lecture 7: Depression: New paths to treatment (Declan McLoughlin)
4.15–4.30
Questions & Wrap-up
Shortcourse Programme
CPD Short Course: Imaging and neuropsychology for clinicians
Fri 31st May, 2013 from 9:00am
Board Room/Theatre LB11, The Lloyd Building, Trinity College Dublin
Accredited for CPD by the Royal College of Psychiatrists of Ireland
CPD credits allowed:
(1 CPD Credit is equivalent to 1 hour of educational activity)
INTRODUCTION
The short course is designed to help practicing clinicians and advanced trainees from a variety of
backgrounds (Clinical psychology, Adult psychiatry, Neuropsychology, Pld age psychiatry, etc) to
update their knowledge of this burgeoning field. Our understanding of disorders of mental
health, neurodegeneration, and acquired brain injuries has been significantly altered by
advances in cognitive neuroimaging in the past 10 years. For many clinicians an introduction to
imaging methods did not form an integral part of their training, with the result that many feel ill
equipped to understand or follow current research in this area. This training day is designed to
help clinicians bridge the gaps in their knowledge in this area and provide an increased ability to
engage with these ongoing developments.
LECTURES
Lecture 1: MRI – what it is and how it works, Arun Bokde
The learning outcomes for this lecture will be:
a - Understanding of proton dynamics as basis of MR images
b - Understanding what functional MRI measures and its' relationship to neuronal activity
Lecture 2: EEG – uses past, present & future, Ed Lawlor
This lecture will provide an introduction to electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings and
common derived brain signals from EEG including Event Related Potentials and spectral
oscillatory activity. An introdution to this analysis techniques will be given alongside illustrative
clinical examples (e.g., schizophrenia) to demonstrate the utility of these eletrophysiological
techniques for understaning mechanisms of impairment in different clinical conditions. Specific
learning outcomes will include: Understanding what EEG actually measures. Basic understanding
of how to collect and analyze EEG. What EEG can do and what it cannot do. An example of the
use of EEG in clinical research: schizophrenia.
Lecture 3: Biomarkers & the brain: lessons learned from Epilepsy, Colin Doherty
The learning outcomes for this lecture will be:
- To become familiar with epilepsy and recent developments in epilepsy research.
- To gain an understanding of what are the physical, psychological and cognitive effects of
the disorder the effects of epilepsy on cognition.
- To gain an understanding of what tools are used to investigate epilepsy and what is the
status of these tools as biomarkers
- To gain understanding of how can these biomarkers help in future therapeutic
developments in Epilepsy
Lecture 4: Detecting Alzheimer's Disease: Biomarkers and Cognitive Assessment, Brian
Lawlor/Robert Coen.
The aim of the first part of the lecture (Brain Lawlor, is to understand how the use of
biomarkers is being used in research and clinical practice to improve the detection and
correct classification of the underlying cause of neurocognitive disorders. In the second part
of the lecture (Robert Coen) participants should gain up to date knowledge about recent
developments in diagnostic approaches to the detection of MCI, dementia, and Alzheimer's
disease and learn about recently developed cognitive tests and assessment tools
Lecture 5: Reconceptualising Bipolar disorder , Colm McDonald
The main learning outcomes of the lecture will be:
- Understand use of neuroimaging to outrule organic pathology in psychosis-like
presentations.
- Understand use of neuroimaging as research tool to explore pathophysiology of bipolar
disorder
- Understand how adapting neuroimaging techniques, such as DTI, and study designs, such
as employing high risk groups, can illuminate pathophysiology underlying illnesses like
bipolar disorder.
Lecture 6: Understanding disability in Schizophrenia, Gary Donohoe
The objective of this lecture is to understand the use of MRI to characterize the cognitive effects
of individual genetic risk factors for psychosis, to recognize deficits in social cognition in
schizophrenia and
to understand recent approaches to remediation of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.
Lecture 7: Depression: New paths to treatment, Declan McLoughlin
The principal teaching objectives of this lecture will be:
- to update students on recent developments in epigenetic factors in depression as well as
glutamate-based treatments and therapeutic brain stimulation for depression
- to critically appraise the role of such therapies
On completion of this workshop, students should be able to:
-
describe the range of physical brain stimulation therapies currently available or in
development for treating depression
appreciate the relevance of epigenetic factors in the aetiology of depression
understand the evidence-base for ketamine and brain stimulation therapies for
depression
evaluate the role of these modalities in treating depression
LECTURERS
Arun Bokde, PhD
Arun Bokde has an appointment as Science Foundation Ireland Stokes Lecturer in Biostatistical
Imaging in the Discipline of Psychiatry, School of Medicine. His main research interests is in
understanding how large scale neural networks in the brain support cognitive function and how
breakdown in such networks lead to cognitive impairment. In particular, he has focused
on the neural networks supporting perception and memory and how they are altered by normal
ageing and neurodegeneration. As well as examining cognitive function using fMRI, I am very
interested in how function and structure interact to produce changes in neural networks. He’s
investigating these issues with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), structural
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
Robert F. Coen, PhD, Reg Psychol AFPsSI
Dr. Robert Coen, Memory Clinic, Mercer's Institute for Research on Ageing (MIRA), St. James's
Hospital, is Senior Neuropsychologist in the Memory Clinic in MIRA specialising in the
neuropsychology of dementia and ageing. Formerly Head of the Psychometrics Dept., Institute of
Clinical Pharmacology, Dublin, he has been an Associate Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology for the
Open University, Lecturer in Psychopharmacology, University College Dublin, and is currently a
staff member of the Dept. of Medical Gerontology, Trinity College Dublin. Current major
research projects that he has an involvement in include the Trinity, University of Ulster and Dept
of Agriculture (TUDA) Cohort study, The Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing (TILDA) and NILVAD, a
European Multicentre Double-Blind Placebo Controlled trial of Nilvadipine in Mild to Moderate
Alzheimer’s disease. Specific research interests include development of cognitive screening
tests, the facilitation of cognitive functioning by non-pharmacological means, autobiographical
memory, and managing the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia.
Colin Doherty, PhD
Colin Doherty is a graduate of UCD medical school in 1991. After completing membership in
general medicine training in 1995, He completed 3 years sub specialty training in Neurology at
Beaumont during which time he completed his doctoral work in MR imaging of epilepsy. He
traveled to Boston in 1998 where he completed residency training in Neurology at Harvard
Medical School. He was chief resident in 2001. There after he completed 2 fellowships at
Massachusetts General Hospital, in Epilepsy and cognition, where he developed skills in
Functional Imaging of language. He returned to Ireland in 2003 and after 2 years as senior
lecturer in epilepsy at RCSI he joined the staff of St. James hospital as consultant Neutologist in
2005. After building the epilepsy division from scratch he was appointed national clinical lead
for the epilepsy programme in the HSE where he and his team are in the middle if a 5 year
transformation programme for epilepsy services nationally. He is a member of the national
clinical effectiveness committee and a board member of the HRB.
Gary Donohoe D.Clin.Psych. PhD
Gary was appointed as associate professor in clinical psychology and neuropsychology at TCD in
2009. His research group (http://medicine.tcd.ie/neuropsychiatric-genetics/cognitiveneuroscience/) studies how brain structure and function are affected by genetic risk factors for
schizophrenia using neuropsychology, MRI and EEG. Psychological therapies for psychosis, with a
particular focus on remediation of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, are also a singificant part
of his work. His research has been supported by the Health Research Board, The Genio Trust.,
NARSAD, NIMH, and NARSAD.
Ed Lalor, BE, MSc
Ed Lalor Ussher Lecturer, School of Engineering and Centre for Bioengineering. After working as
a silicon design engineer and a primary school teacher, Ed joined MIT's Media Lab Europe, where
he worked from 2002-2005 as a research scientist investigating brain-computer interfacing and
attention in the brain. This led to a PhD in biomedical engineering which was completed through
UCD in 2006. He then spent 2 years in New York working as a postdoctoral research fellow at the
Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. He returned to Ireland as a postdoctoral
research fellow based at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience in 2008. Following a brief
stint in the Department of Visual Neuroscience at University College London, he returned to TCD
as an Assistant Professor in 2011.
Brian Lawlor, MRCPsych, PhD
Conolly Norman Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, Consultant Psychiatrist
for the Elderly at St James’s Hospital, Dublin. Professor Lawlor’s research interests are in the
early detection, diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease, the neurobiology and treatment
of behavioural and psychological symptoms in dementia and mental disorders in the community
dwelling elderly. Prof. Lawlor has conducted longitudinal cohort studies of Alzheimer's disease
in clinical settings and cross sectional and longitudinal studies of community dwelling healthy
older people and those with mental disorders. The overarching aims of Prof. Lawlor’s research
programmes are to develop clinical, neuropsychological and biological markers of Alzheimer's
disease at the earliest possible stage and to test promising new interventions in clinical
populations. Prof. Lawlor is currently participating in a number of collaborative studies,
including the GSK Translational Research in Alzheimer's Disease study which aims to develop
markers of Alzheimer’s disease using novel Evoked Response Potential (ERP) from
Electroencephalogram (EEG) and olfactory discrimination and to assess their responses to short
term doses of donepezil and understanding the neurocardiovascular contribution to the
transition from mild cognitive impairment to dementia. Prof. Lawlor was lead PI in the recent
Clinical trial carried out in collaboration with the Roskamp Institute, Florida, and Trinity College
Institute of Neurosciences, examining the safety and efficacy of Nilvadapine treatment.
Colm McDonald, MB BCh, MRCPsych, PhD
Colm McDonald is Professor of Psychiatry at National University of Ireland, Galway and
Consultant Psychiatrist, West Galway Mental Health Services. He completed his basic clinical
training in Dublin and then moved to the Institute of Psychiatry in London, where he completed
his clinical and research training and received his PhD. He took up his professorial post in 2005
and has developed a clinical research program which focuses on investigating neurobiological
and neuroimaging abnormalities associated with major psychotic and affective disorders. He is
Director of the Clinical Neuroimaging Laboratory at NUI Galway. His research projects have been
supported by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, Health Research Board, Royal
Society, National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, Mental Health
Commission. He has authored over 100 original articles in peer reviewed journals.
Declan McLoughlin, MB BCh BAO, MRCPI, MRCPsych, PhD
Prof McLoughlin is a clinician-scientist in the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN) and
Dept of Psychiatry, and a Consultant in Old Age Psychiatry at St Patrick’s University Hospital,
Dublin. Within TCIN, he has established a multidisciplinary (e.g. molecular biologists, clinicians,
psychologists) group with a focus on preclinical and translational research in depression. His
research activities include: neurobiology of depression; molecular mechanisms of action of ECT;
molecular (i.e. DNA, mRNA, miRNA, protein) biomarker investigation; clinical trials (e.g.
EFFECT-Dep Trial, a large randomised trial of different forms of ECT for severe depression); and
systematic
reviews
and
meta-analyses.
More
information
can
be
found
at
http://www.medicine.tcd.ie/psychiatry/research/projects/depression-neurobiology.php