BENGALURU: National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), along with National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Rohini Nilekani Centre for Brain and Mind launched the CALM Brain database here on Wednesday.
Phase-wise patient data gathering for the CALM-Brain was initiated as part of the Accelerator program for Discovery in Brain disorders using Stem cells (ADBS project) jointly funded by the Department of Biotechnology and the Pratiksha Trust.
CALM-Brain is India’s first-of-its-kind repository of clinical, neuro-imaging, behavioural, genetic and other datasets on five disorders – addiction, bipolar disorder, dementia, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia. This longitudinal data incorporates multiple modes of studying brain function in neuropsychiatric diseases including functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), electroencephalogram (EEG), observations of cognition, eye-tracking, genetic analyses of blood samples and clinical assessments.
Biju Viswanath, Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS, said, “Around 5,000 patients who walked into NIMHANS for treatment for various mental illnesses were studied using various parameters. The process started after taking permission from the family members in 2017.
We have looked at how childhood and adolescent experiences impact mental health, combined effects of family history, difference between the symptoms in men and women.
We are also studying some of the memory changes in people with illnesses and those who have a family history of illnesses. We have also done genetic studies where we find many genetic variations responsible for various neurodevelopmental conditions like autism and others.”
What makes CALM-Brain a unique data repository is its ethnic composition. It will enable multi-scale investigations into neuropsychiatric diseases with Indian population data, currently under-represented in existing global datasets, thereby redesigning the approach towards tackling mental illnesses in India.
NIMHANS and NCBS have approached the Indian Council of Medial Research to seek their permission for making this data an open source for clinicians and researchers from across the world.