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 ...

This thesis investigates age-related hearing loss (ARHL) as a potential biomarker and risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia. Two reviews were conducted to examine the evidence for an association in the epidemiological ...

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 ...

For most people, the loss of a loved one is a tragedy unequalled by any other. It affects every family and raises policy and logistic issues for the health and social service agencies of every community. Currently, people ...

Despite advances in neonatal care leading to a dramatic reduction in mortality rates in recent decades, there have been comparatively modest improvements in neurodevelopmental outcomes for infants born with neonatal ...

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 ...

Involuntary care is a feature of mental health services around the world. In addition to involuntary admission and treatment, specific coercive or restrictive practices including seclusion and physical restraint occur in ...

In the last decade, deep learning (DL) has revolutionised fields like speech and vision through artificial neural networks. Can DL similarly transform biological psychiatry and neuroimaging? This thesis explores that ...

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 ...

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 ...