Browsing Trinity College Dublin Theses & Dissertations by Subject "Psychiatry, Ph.D."
Now showing items 1-20 of 37
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A candidate gene search for autism
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2006)This research involved a candidate gene search for autism in the Irish population. It sought to identify candidate genes based on information from linkage studies, reports of chromosomal abnormalities, animal studies and ... -
A molecular genetic investigation of schizophrenia in an Irish study population
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2006)Schizophrenia (OMIM 181500) is a complex genetic disorder, which affects ~1% of the population, and typically presents in early adulthood with abnormalities of perception (psychosis), cognition, information processing and ... -
Application of functional genomics to psychiatric disorders
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2012)Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are common and severe psychiatric illnesses directly affecting approximately 1% of the population worldwide. Both have a devastating impact on the lives of those affected not to mention ... -
Brain structure, function and connectivity in Autism Spectrum Disorders
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2012)In this study, two neuroimaging modalities were used to investigate neural connectivity in individuals with autism spectrum disorder; functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). -
Caring for a child with an autistic spectrum disorder over the life span
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2003)Carers of children on the autistic spectrum have stressful lives (Randall & Parker, 1999). The aim of this study was to investigate the life of the carer, and in particular to examine how they have coped, their support ... -
Characterisation of MACROD2, a putative autism susceptibility gene : translating Genome-Wide Analysis to causation
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2013)Genome Wide Association studies (GWAS) have been used to identify genetic markers which have strong statistical association with a disease. Establishing a functional consequence of association is required to determine a ... -
Characterising schizophrenia candidate susceptibility genes using intermediate phenotypes
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2008)This thesis describes the use of intermediate phenotypes as a method for understanding, at a behavioural level, the functional significance of candidate susceptibility genes for schizophrenia. The historical context for ... -
Electroconvulsive therapy for depression : optimising treatment and exploring molecular mechanisms
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2016)The objective of this project was to explore clinical and molecular aspects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in the treatment of depression, with a particular focus on the role of microRNAs (small, non-coding molecules ... -
Electrophysiological event-related-potentials & their association with genome-wide-associated risk variants in schizophrenia
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2012)This thesis describes the use of electrophysiological event- related-potentials as a method for understanding, at the cortical level, the functional significance of putative schizophrenia susceptibility genes identified ... -
Frailty in an older population : the impact on community-dwelling elders, dementia patients and older caregivers
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2012)Frailty represents one of the greatest gerontological challenges faced by societies in coming years. Growing numbers of older citizens leads not only to increasing numbers of healthy elders, but also frail and disabled elders. -
Fuctional and structural brain changes in ageing related to emotional processing
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2012)Of all mental abilities emotional processing is well-preserved in healthy ageing. In spite of this, the neural substrates of emotional processing in ageing are still not fully understood. In this project several experiments ... -
Functional investigation of neurodevelopmental effects of DISC1 and related psychosis risk genes
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2015)Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder, which affects about 1% of the population worldwide, and whose symptoms start during early adulthood. SCZ is determined by the interaction of genetic and environmental ... -
Functional neural differences in emotional regualtion between patients with MDD and healthy controls in the context of the vulnerability factors : family history of MDD, BDNF Val66Met polymorphism
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2012)Emotional regulation is a key mechanism which shows disturbances during major depressive disorder (MDD), and which may be modified by certain factors enhancing vulnerability to MDD. Two vulnerability factors were tested ... -
Genetic and molecular studies of rare variation in schizophrenia
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2014)Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a severe and debilitating disorder and it has a worldwide prevalence estimated at approximately 1%. The underlying pathogenesis of SCZ is poorly understood and there is a great need for diagnostic ... -
High dose right unilateral versus moderate dose bilateral ECT for major depression : time to re-orientation, physical functioning, quality of life and attitudes
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2012)The objective of this study was to compare the effects of 1.5 x seizure threshold (ST) bitemporal ECT with high dose (6 x ST) right unilateral (RUL) ECT with respect to immediate recovery from treatment, change in physical ... -
Implications of cortical structure and connectivity in autism spectrum disorder
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2015)Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by early-onset deficits in social communication and interaction together with recurrent restricted repetitive behaviours (APA, 2013). Insights ... -
Investigating risk factors and clinical correlates of copy number variants in Autism Spectrum Disorders and schizophrenia
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2013)Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (OMIM 209850) and schizophrenia (OMIM 181510) are both complex neurodevelopmental disorders with extensive emotional and physical costs. Although there has been some progress in understanding ... -
Investigating the effects of schizophrenia genome-wide associated variants on white matter microstructure and brain morphology using diffusion tenson imaging and quantitative MRI
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2014)This thesis describes four studies that aim to to elucidate the effects of schizophrenia genome-wide associated variants on measures of white matter microstructure, cortical thickness, surface area and subcortical volume. ... -
Investigation of glutamatergic synapse genes in schizophrenia susceptibility : from linkage to genome-wide association studies
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2011)Schizophrenia is a common and severe mental illness which is highly heritable. Susceptibility to schizophrenia is likely to be caused by multiple genetic variants in combination with environmental risk factors. The ... -
Investigation of putative candidate genes involved in the pathogenesis of Schizophrenia using a large Irish case-control sample
(Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland). School of Medicine. Discipline of Psychiatry, 2008)This research thesis involved a candidate gene search for schizophrenia in the Irish population. It sought to identify candidate genes based on positional and functional information contained in previously published material. ...