Launched in 2015, the BANDA study is among the first of several projects funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to study a disease population using data collection protocols from the The Human Connectome Project, a multi-institutional project seeking to build a comprehensive map of neural connections in the human brain. Headed by researchers at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in collaboration with research teams at McLean Hospital, Boston University, and Mass General Hospital, this study aims to probe adolescent depression and anxiety at multiple levels of analysis, collecting MRI and clinical/behavioral data from adolescents with depression or anxiety disorders, comparing them with healthy controls, and utilizing algorithms and brain imaging software to map out relevant circuits in the brain. The goal is to determine whether we can find reliable biomarkers for these disorders which can be used to more accurately predict clinical outcomes.
Why depression and anxiety?
Depression and anxiety disorders affect as many as one in four adolescents in the United States, with many carrying symptoms into adulthood. They often occur together, and through a multitude of characterizations may not only impact the general quality of life of the individual, but have also been found to be highly correlated to several leading causes of death in teenagers and young adults such as suicide and substance abuse accidents. While progress has been made in understanding these illnesses, our knowledge of the biological mechanisms behind them is still limited - often making treatment challenging to appropriate in a clinical setting. By attempting to map out the brain signatures of depression and anxiety at an age critical for mental development, the BANDA study aims to discover new insights into the underlying neurobiology and improve the way in which we approach these major psychiatric disorders.
Source of Participants
The Child Program at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) at BU is an interdisciplinary research and treatment program devoted to expanding and improving the quality and accessibility of evidence based mental health care for young children and their families. The Child Program at CARD provides state of the art treatment for children aged 3-17 with anxiety disorders and related mood disorders, and maintains a substantial patient flow due to its well-established clinical infrastructure. It has received both local/national media attention for its grant supported research programs for youth and their families.
Child Cognitive Behavioral Therapy program at MGH is a Harvard Medical School-affiliated major medical center serving the entire New England area. The Child CBT program serves children ages 3-24 years, receiving 10-20 referrals per week with the vast majority of referrals being for anxiety. Aside from the program, recruits will be among those presenting to the general child outpatient psychiatry department at MGH. The outpatient psychiatric clinics register 30,000 visits per year, and evaluate more than 200 new patients per month.
McLean Hospital is a comprehensive mental health care system committed to providing a full range of high quality, cost effective, mental health services to patients, their families and the larger community. The Hospital is dedicated to training mental health professionals, to supporting basic and clinical research to understand the causes of mental illnesses, and to developing effective new means for prevention and treatment. Since 1811, McLean has been a world leader in the treatment of mental illness, research on mental illnesses, and in training generations of mental health care providers. A major teaching facility of Harvard Medical School, McLean maintains the largest program of research in neuroscience and psychiatry of any private psychiatric hospital in the US.
Study Visits
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Study visit 1 occurs at any one of the three clinical sites (BU, MGH, or McLean), and it involves clinical characterization of the participant, an evaluation of inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the administration of behavioral tasks developed by the National Institutes of Health and the Human Connectome Project.
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Study visit 2 occurs at the MGH Martinos Center. It involves an MRI scanning session using the Human Connectome Project imaging protocol (structural MRI, diffusion MRI, task-based and resting-state functional MRI), as well as an administration of a behavioral task measuring attentional bias using eyetracking software.
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The two study visits occur within two weeks of each other. After the study visits are concluded, the participants are asked to complete follow-up clinical assessments at 6 and 12 months after the last study visit. In particular, self-report questionnaires are administered online at 6 months, and clinical interviews are conducted at 12 months in person during an on-site visit.
Neuroimaging Data
Structural MRI
These scans show how gray and white matter is distributed throughout the brain, and allow researchers to delineate important brain structures.
Diffusion MRI
These scans reveal the white-matter fiber bundles that form the network of pathways through which brain structures are connected and communicate with each other.
Task-based functional MRI
These scans measure how different regions of the brain are activated while the participant performs simple tasks inside the scanner (guessing a number, matching pictures, etc.)
Resting-state functional MRI
These scans measure spontaneous brain activity while the participant is simply lying in the scanner without performing any particular task.
