Health data to pave the way for individualised psychiatry

Professor

University of Copenhagen

Professor Michael Eriksen Benros to receive DKK 20 million grant from the Lundbeck Foundation’s Collaborative Projects programme

The project by Michael Eriksen Benros will, for the first time, use electronic patient journals on a large scale to generate knowledge about clinical and biological aspects of psychiatric disorders, including specific symptoms, diagnostic processes, responses to treatment and much more.

Benros and his partners will use multivariate statistical methods and machine learning to analyse the vast quantities of data in patient journals, including detailed clinical information that will facilitate a deep phenotyping of psychiatric disorders. The project will provide new knowledge about how diseases progress and help improve prevention and treatment by mapping the importance of clinical markers in the development of psychiatric disorders.

The professor expects that the detailed clinical markers on the patients’ conditions recorded in the electronic journals will reveal underlying mechanisms that can be used to predict patient outcomes. This knowledge will be used to develop decision-making tools precise enough to be used in a clinical setting, which will pave the way for better treatment, new knowledge on preventive options and, ultimately, improve the prognosis for patients with psychiatric disorders.

‘Working together will enhance our competencies and capabilities as psychiatrists in artificial intelligence. The development of decision-support models, based on the wealth of detailed information in Danish electronic journals, will enhance our understanding of brain disorders and support the development of new tools, close interdisciplinary collaboration and synergies, which are essential for improving treatment,’ says Benros.

The project is headed by Professor Michael Eriksen Benros at Psychiatric Centre Copenhagen, in close collaboration with machine learning and artificial intelligence expert Associate Professor Simon Rasmussen, who was a co-applicant, and his team at the University of Copenhagen.

Other collaborators and experts involved in the project include among others:

Professor Wesley Thomson, University of California San Diego (UCSD)
Professor Michael Boesen, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospital
Professor Mads Nielsen, University of Copenhagen
Associate Professor Line Katrine Harder Clemmensen, Technical University of Denmark
Chief Information Officer Jannick Brennum, Head of EHR and Health Data section, Rigshospitalet – University of Copenhagen