Janita Bralten

Biography

I have been intrigued by the genetic architecture of the brain since my studies (Psychobiology and Cognitive Neuroscience, graduated cum laude) particularly in its relationship to neuropsychiatric disorders. Since neurodevelopmental disorders are highly prevalent, greatly impact patients and their environment and currently have very limited treatment options, I am highly motivated to unravel the underlying mechanisms of these disorders. Building on successful work from my Master’s internship, awarded with the UMC St Radboud Master Prize, I specialized in genetic analysis methods during my PhD. I investigated genetic variants and volumetric brain measures focussing on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). For this work I received the Early Career Award of the European Network on Hyperkinetic Disorder (Eunethydis), an important acknowledgement for promising scientists in the first 3 years of their PhD. I also won a competitive Frye Stipend, allowing me to visit the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque (USA) for three months, where I learned multivariate analysis techniques integrating brain imaging and genetic data. By the end of my PhD project, I had become convinced that we should study the genetics of phenotypic/behavioural traits, and not binary diagnostic groups, in order to understand the biology behind highly complex neurodevelopmental disorders. When I was invited to do a postdoc project as the genetics specialist in the EU-funded TACTICS consortium, I started working on this. Here I showed that autistic traits in a population sample indeed show a shared genetic etiology with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and I published one of the first proof-of-concept studies on the trait-disorder continuum concept at the genetic level.
In the field of psychiatric genetics, world-wide collaboration in large consortia is the (only) way to obtain the enormous sample sizes essential to perform sufficiently powered genetic analyses. I enjoy this spirit of team science tremendously and collaboration has always been one of my strengths. Although many researchers contribute, the analysis plans for consortia studies are designed and carried-out by core analysis groups. For a young researcher like me, it is a major challenge to become part of such core groups, but I have achieved this already on two occasions. When I visited the ENIGMA Consortium headquarters in Los Angeles (USA) for a month, working on imaging genetics analyses, I was invited to join the ENIGMA core genetics analysis team. As such, I enthusiastically investigated genetics of brain imaging measures in the world-wide largest datasets. Our cortical morphology project was conducted in four years, and led to a foundational manuscript that is published in a scientific top-journal. I am also in the core analysis group of the ENIGMA ADHD Working Group; our identification of brain substrates of ADHD in the world’s largest case-control datasets opens up important public debates. Interestingly both ENIGMA projects show that (genetically influenced) brain measures link to psychiatric disorders and traits, in line with my trait-disorder continuum idea.
Following my initial work on ASD, I have shown that the same principle applies to obsessive-compulsive symptoms and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Next to trait-specificity I also showed the importance of genetic specificity, when I found that brain volume and ASD are only genetically correlated through a specific gene-set. I also extended my approach when I studied a cross-disorder phenotype, sociability, and showed genetic links with schizophrenia, depression, and autism. For my innovative ideas I was awarded a tenure track position at the Human Genetics department only two years after completing my PhD. I currently supervise three PhD students working in my research-line, and three of my former PhD students have successfully defended their thesis (one cum laude). Recently I co-designed a large, EU-funded program on the multimorbidity of brain-based and somatic traits and disorders. For this consortium with 17 partners, I am in the COOR team (of three coordinators) and the work-package leader for the genetics work-package.
Recently I received a very competitive Veni grant, for a project where I aim to discover biologically informed subgroups by the integration of brain, behaviour and genetics to dissect the complex etiology of neurodevelopmental psychiatric phenotypes. I aim to include other health measures like somatic features and to use state-of-the-art statistics to reach this goal.