Rücklab – Psychiatry research at Karolinska Institutet
Research on OCD and related disorders, precision psychiatry, psychiatric genetics, suicide prevention, stress and PTSD
Due to TV4’s feature that a large number of calls do not reach the suicide telephone line, Christian comments on the importance of getting the right help and possible ways to deal with suicide. Watch the clip (in Swedish) here.
Jesper took part in a Dagens Nyheter article about the importance of hair for men, in relation to body dysmorphic disorder and the role hair plays in the identity.
We have received $1,494,898 from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) for the Saving Lives project!
The project aims to improve precision in prediction and prevention of suicide by constructing a national cohort of genetic and environmental data. The ultimate goal is to decrease suicide rates.
Suicide is a tragic event for the individual, the relatives and society. We therefore make efforts to prevent suicide, and a typical way of doing this is to assess suicide risk. Still, studies in psychiatric populations show that current assessments available will classify one out of two suicidal individuals as low risk before an actual death by suicide, while 95% of those classified as high risk will eventually not die by suicide.
Why?
The causes of suicide are complex. Many different factors and life events contribute. To improve prediction, large studies and long follow-up are needed to reach meaningful sample sizes.
Using unique Swedish assets, of genetic and environmental data, and machine learning we have an opportunity a discover environmental and genetic risk factors associated with suicide in order to predict and prevent it.
We thank the AFSP for this grant.
We are looking for a new doctoral student to join our computational team!
Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research?
In the research group we work to improve the lives of individuals with psychiatric conditions. A core theme of our research is to develop more accurate prediction models for both the risk of, and also consequences of, psychiatric conditions.
The main scientific objective of your PhD project is to advance knowledge in suicide prediction. Suicide is a catastrophic event for the individual, close relatives, colleagues, and society. Your project is focused on statistical modelling in two different studies. In both studies you will collaborate with colleagues at Oxford University (UK), University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (US) and Sweden.
🎯Research project 1 is a registry study of risk factors for suicide among psychiatric patients that have experienced compulsive mental care.
🎯Research project 2 you will be working with multimodal data (including genetic data) in a nationwide suicide cohort with the purpose of improving present prediction of suicide aiming to derive and validate better risk models for suicide in the total population.
The position is a part of the Rücklab computational team, led by John Wallert.
We look forward to receiving your application!
In the end of 2021, project Saving lives received two grants: 4.9 million kronor from Forte (Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare) and 2.4 million kronor from The Swedish Research Council. The research program involves several members from the research group, and the principal investigator of the project is Christian Rück.
Congratulations! 🎯
Saving lives: Constructing a nationwide cohort with multimodal data to improve precision in prediction and prevention of suicide
Project summary:
Suicide is a major public health issue, causing severe impact on individuals and families, as well as relevant societal costs. In Sweden alone, ~70,000 years of potential life are lost each year due to suicide. Despite dedicated research efforts and prevention strategies, suicide-related outcomes are still difficult to predict and prevent. The goal of this research program is to utilize unique resources in Sweden to improve prediction of suicide by integrating environmental factors captured by national registers and genetic information using multi-modal modelling.
In aim 1, we will create the world’s largest suicide biobank by collecting neonatal blood spots stored at the Swedish PKU biobank from 4,000 individuals that died by suicide, i.e. total coverage of all suicides in Sweden from 1975 and onwards. DNA will be extracted from each of these blood spots. Data from the national registers will be added, covering major risk factors across the lifetime (socioeconomic, demographic and medical). Further, blood spots and register data from 8000 matched controls with no suicidal outcomes will be available through collaboration.
In aim 2, we will identify register-based risk factors and genetic variants associated with suicide by genotyping all DNA samples from cases and matched controls and performing a case-control genome-wide association study meta-analysis.
In aim 3, we will combine hundreds of candidate suicide predictors from the national registers (covering demographics, socioeconomic status, In aim 3, we will combine hundreds of candidate suicide predictors from the national registers (covering demographics, socioeconomic status, electronic medical records, criminality) with genetic predictors (polygenic risk scores for suicide, depression, impulsivity, and substance misuse) using both established quantitative modelling and newer machine learning approaches.
Today we had the last research group meeting of the year, the first one in a long while in person at Psykiatri Sydväst. We summarized the year that has gone by and looked ahead to 2022.
This year, new research tracks have been added to the group. In addition to OCD and related disorders, we now work with projects about “exhaustion disorder” (Swedish diagnosis utmattningssyndrom), trauma and suicide.
Apart from this, the research group’s members ongoing projects involve:
The group is now extensive and well equipped for exciting new research!
A member of our Research Group, John Wallert, recently received a 4.5 million SEK grant from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet, VR) for his project about suicide among compulsory mental care.
The project is a collaboration with Oxford University and involves studying risk factors for suicide in a cohort of more than 100 000 compulsory mental Care acts (Lagen om psykiatrisk tvångsvård, LPT, in Swedish), using 40 years of unique national register data.
Congratulations!
In a recent study published in Molecular Psychiatry, members of our group and colleagues at Karolinska Institutet have looked at suicide in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The study compared rates of suicide among 36 788 patients with OCD and matched controls without an OCD diagnosis.
The risk of dying by suicide was found to be about 10 times higher in patients with OCD (OR = 9.83 (95% CI, 8.72-11.08). Patients with OCD were also about 5 times more likely to attempt suicide (OR = 5.45 (05% CI, 5.24-5.67). The risk was marginally attenuated in women compared to men.
Lorena Fernández de la Cruz and her co-authors also note that the increased risk of death by suicide
“… remained substantial after adjusting for different groups of psychiatric comorbidities that are already known to be associated with suicide. In fact, 43% of the individuals from the OCD cohort who died by suicide did not have any other recorded psychiatric comorbidity.” (p. 4)
They argue that OCD is associated with an increased risk of death by suicide in its own right. The main predictor for dying by suicide was a previous suicide attempt.
The message for clinicians is clear:
“OCD should be added to the list of psychiatric disorders that are known to increase the risk of suicide in their own right. Suicide risk needs to be carefully monitored in these patients, particularly in those who have previously attempted suicide.” (p. 6)
The paper is freely available here.
Rücklab - Psychiatry research at Karolinska Institutet 