Overview
Severe mental illnesses are a major source of disability in young adults with about 2-3% of the population at risk for developing these disorders both in India and across the world. These disorders are recognized as one of the major non-communicable diseases (NCD) and a significant contributor to morbidity as articulated by the World Health Organization's New Delhi call for action on combating NCDs in India. Given this huge disease burden, the development of novel ways to diagnose and treat mental illness will have important positive social and economic benefits. To achieve this goal, there is a pressing need to understand the mechanistic basis of these disorders; such discovery could form the basis for the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.
The Rohini Nilekani Centre for Brain and Mind uses an integrative approach that links basic research with clinical studies of mental illness. Scientists from NCBS work with clinicians from NIMHANS to explore how mental illnesses develop using clinical neuroscience, human genetics and genomics coupled with stem cell technology. This program brings together experts in clinical medicine, molecular genetics, neurobiology and stem cell technology to create a comprehensive and long-term resource aimed at better understanding mental health issues at both the molecular and clinical levels.
RN-CBM has created a cohort of young adults from families with a high incidence of mental illness. We plan to follow these families and individuals into the future (for ca. 25 years) to understand how and in whom mental illness develops. These families will be examined in detail by clinicians using modern medical technology. Genetic analysis of individuals from these families will provide an insight into the genetic basis of mental illness. This program will harness the potential of stem cell technology to create “disease in a dish” models of brain cells. Comparing cells from patients with those from people without such mental illness, and their clinical phenotypes will provide a unique opportunity to understand the disease biology of mental disorders at the molecular, cellular and developmental and behavioural scales.
One of the principal goals of the Centre is to create resources for the multi-scale investigation into severe mental illnesses. Thus, all of the data gathered by the range of clinical and experimental researchers and experts are deposited into a biorepository of patient-derived stem cells, and a linked digital database called CALM-Brain that hosts the clinical, behavioural, neuroimaging and other datasets. These together form the backbone of the program, and hopes to unlock a holistic understanding of mental illnesses by promoting research across multiple disciplines, and scales.
The RN-CBM Biorepository
At the Centre, we have established a repository of stem cell lines from multiplex families affected by mental illnesses namely addiction, bipolar disorder, dementia, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia.
Stem cells are a special cell type with the unique capacity to renew themselves and give rise to specialized cell types. With recent advances in technology, they can be generated from the adult cells of a person’s body. They can, therefore, be used as a tool in the laboratory to recreate a broad range of alterations or abnormalities seen in cells, tissues or organs during disease.
CALM-Brain Database
CALM-Brain is India’s first-of-its-kind repository containing clinical, neuro-imaging, behavioural, genetic and other datasets on five mental disorders – addiction, bipolar disorder, dementia, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia.
Phase-wise patient data gathering for the CALM-Brain was initiated in 2016 and continues till date.
By compiling, curating and providing an analysis platform for this rich and multi-model dataset, we hope to facilitate research that attempts to discover the underlying biology of brain disorders.